Crossroads
by Lolita's-Charms
Summary: Witches and Warlocks exist and have reached the point of ruling society. Duo, a human with no inkling of witch power, is trying to become a consultant on the police force when several crimes hit the city. Even though he cannot sense magic, he struggles to come to terms with himself and where he fits in this new society.
1. Chapter 1

Crossroads

A/U

Various pairings that will change along the way.

**let me know what you think so I know if I should continue this story**

Duo Maxwell fumbled with the picks in his hand. The door in front of him was crafted, but he was sure that he could break through the spell without much more of a problem. With one final sigil, the lock clicked and the door drifted open just a crack.

Inside was dark, too dark to see anything more than a foot in front of his face. He pulled out a small penlight from his shirt pocket, pushed the on button and put it between his teeth so that he could put the ring of sigils into his pocket. Duo looked behind him for good measure to make sure that nobody nor nothing was creeping up behind him. It would not do for him to get caught now.

Without a sound, he crossed the threshold and held his breath. He cursed out loud as a sharp red line went from his feet to the center of the room. It sizzled through the air and burned through the wooden floor. It reached the center of the room and split into four different directions. He knew what it would draw, he knew that he should not have stood there to watch it complete its run.

A pentagram complete with an outer circle glowed brightly in the gloom. He had figured that he had caught all of the traps before the doorway. Obviously not. Now it would play out and warn anybody nearby that he had entered the house. It would capture his psychic scent and trap it within the circle. Duo could turn and run, but they would eventually find him and wonder what the hell he was doing there. If the occupants didn't, then the police sure would. Neither party would care that he was on the job.

With a sigh, he sat on the front stoop, with the door open, and the pentagram glowing brightly behind him. Duo decided now was as good of a time as any to smoke a cigarette. He turned off his little penlight and traded it for the pack of cigarettes in the same pocket. He was half way through the first one when a car came screeching to a halt on the curb directly in front of the house. A woman jumped out of the car and ran up to the doorway.

"It would have to be you," she snarled into his face. She was not much taller standing up than he was sitting down, but she still somehow managed to sneer down her nose at him. "What do you think you were doing? And who taught you how to break through the shields?"

Duo took a last pull on the butt and through the remainder into the dew-wet grass off to the side. He looked over her from top to bottom and came to the conclusion that she was still as fit as ever in her small black dress. Dorothy would could never disappoint him in that department at least. There were plenty of other things that they had disappointed each other in the past with.

"Would it help to tell you that I am on assignment?" he asked with a drawn out drawl. He could see that she was pissed, but hopefully would not turn his rear end into grass.

"Says you. Who sent you out here?" she asked as she walked past him. The pentagram was a sort of alarm that many witches and warlocks used to secure their homes and their belongings. Whoever triggers it, would leave behind a stench particular to that specific person. The witch would then use a spell of some sort or another to track the said person down without much fuss on their end. Duo would not be able to cover his tracks in any magical way possible. He was born a null - without a single hint of magic. His father despised him because of it and his mother wasn't there to give her opinion on the matter.

"Chang sent me out," Duo told her. It was almost the whole truth, but if Chang found out that he had come out on this night instead of during the day, he would be furious. Dorothy probably new it too.

"Get the hell off my front porch before I fry your ass. You might as well come inside for the time being." Dorothy flipped a switch just inside the door and then swiped her hand through the red glow where the top point of the pentagram met the outer circle and just like that, it was gone. Duo shut the door behind himself as he stepped inside.

The house was tastefully done in muted tones. The living room was of a good size with a small chandelier that gave the room ambient light. Expensive pictures were spaced apart on the wall across from the front door. It was an open floor plan, so he could see the entire kitchen from where he stood.

"Well, come on now. You can't tell me that you didn't plan on coming on through here and snooping around. Tell me, what all did Chang send you out here for?" She was pulling out the makings for coffee, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that Duo would follow her into the kitchen.

"I was told to just make it inside," he replied, walking over to the small kitchen nook that sat in the far corner of the tiled kitchen. "There isn't much else. Get in and get out."

"Not much of an initiation rite, now is it?"

"Well, I have to start somewhere, and it was better to do it to somebody that we both knew rather than a witch that would fry me on site, no matter what the explanation was for me being there."

"I still don't understand why the city wants a null." She struck a nerve here as she watched Duo scowl. "Ah, I take it that they really don't? How does that work?"

"I'm supposed to be consulting," he practically growled in answer. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't tell one spell from another. Now, on one hand he could disarm most low level alarm systems and follow any trail that he could investigate the good old fashioned way. It happened about twenty-five years ago. Witches and warlocks came out of the so-called closet and they were mostly greeted with open arms except for a select few bad apples that are in every bunch in society.

"Talk about insulting," Dorothy stated. The coffee chirped, announcing that it was ready. She grabbed two mugs, the cream from the refridgerator, and the sugar from the cupboard. She could do him justice by remembering how he wanted his coffee, they both had drunk enough of it together in the past.

Dorothy was part of an investigative unit that was a branch of the local police station. She worked on a state level rather than the local city level, but was able to still stay close to home most of the time. She had already been hired when they found out she was a witch and was quickly promoted within the ranks.

"Insulting... Yeah, you could say that. But, what do you expect with so many witches still crawling out of the wood work as they reach their offering age? No offense to you, but you guys have us beat in most ways. Us puny natural humans have to scrape by these days."

"Natural humans? What are we then, Duo? Something unnatural, not real? We damn well are and you know it! How dare you try to call us anything else?" This is, and always had been, a point of contention between the two of them. Back when they first had gotten together he hadn't known that she was a witch, but when it came out it just made a bad situation worse.

"Hell Dorothy, I don't want to fight with you like this. I thought we agreed to disagree on this subject and had moved on." Duo really did not want to spend the rest of the night fighting like they used to. "I failed the assignment. I need to get back to the office and report to Chang." Dorothy still looked like she wanted to argue, but there was no use. They were too different from each other and that had been what caused them separating in the past.

"It is not like you failed miserably. I put the trigger for that alarm in a rather nasty place, so you would not be the only one to have not found it. Don't take it too hard." She was trying to reassure him, and he wasn't sure that it was going to work. If he could not do simple tasks such as getting through the front door of a rather low-level witch, then he would not be doing much consulting with the police in the coming months.

"How old are you now, Dorothy?" he asked her while carefully watching her expression.

"By humans or witches?"

"Both," he told her.

"By human years, I am 130 years old. For a witch, I've just turned twenty-six," she answered quietly, looking into her coffee as if it would tell her his next question.

"I'm twenty-two, Dorothy." She nodded her head. "You should have told me at the beginning." With that being said, he stood up and poured the remaining coffee into the sink. "I will show myself out. Thank you for the coffee." He didn't glance back to where she was sitting, so he did not see the pained look on her face. At the door, he stopped for a moment. He looked around the door-jam and the door knob. There it was, etched into the knob. He would know better if there was a next time. He opened the door, shut it quietly, and walked out into the night.

The half moon showed through the wispy clouds. The scent of rain was heavy in the air and he hoped that it would wait until he got home so he wouldn't get wet. It was only a couple of blocks to the bus stop, but he really did not want to be wet before the night was over. The night was quiet, a few bugs chirping and clicking along the way. He was almost there when a car pulled up beside him.

He glanced over and saw that it was Chang's little Fiat two seater. "Go ahead and get in," Chang, or rather Wufei Chang, called out to him. When the car came to a full stop, Duo climbed in after making sure he was not going to track anything into the neat little car.

"Why are you here, Chang?" He had a sinking feeling that Dorothy had called him, or that he was already in the area.

"Dorothy called." Duo nodded his head. "I thought I told you to be trying your little stunts during the day?" Chang practically yelled at him. He was looking at Duo and barely had enough time to stop for a stop sign. Duo slouched down further into his seat and shrugged his shoulders in answer.

"You are so damn lucky that it was just Dorothy. I hope she layed into you so I don't have to spend hours trying to drill it into your head that not all witches will be as accommodating."

"Will you just let me out already? It's not like I've had to walk this far to get home before." Duo was angry and it always seemed like he was in this state of mind. Chang had gone to bat for him at the police station. It was the only way that he had any chance at all of getting a job there. He didn't want to be working at some fast-food joint or general retail. This was, as many people would call it, a chance of a life time, and he was busy screwing it up as usual.

"No, I'm not going to let you out here. I drove all the way out here to get you. I'm not going to make you walk just because you have pissed me off." They had known each other for years, practically growing up next door to each other. Chang was extremely young for a witch. That did not keep him slowed down for very long within the ranks of the police. Chang knew that Duo had high potential, even thought he was not a witch. Duo was a damn good investigator, Chang just had to convince others of that fact.

"I just don't want to be yelled at again for screwing up," Duo told him, glaring out the window at the lights that they passed by.

"Dorothy told me where she put the trigger. If I didn't have a knack for sensing magic, I would have missed it, too."

"So, you're telling me that because I'm merely a human, that I suck at the job."

"Duo! You know that is not what I said," Chang said, exasperated with his friend's behavior.

"Oh shove off of it, Chang. I don't know what you want me to say or how to feel. It seems that everywhere I turn, you witches and warlocks have taken over everything and normal humans are just inferior." Another stop sign was coming up, and they were a lot closer to his apartment. When Chang stopped, Duo undid his seat belt and jumped out of the car.

"Duo, get back here!"

"Chang, go home. Have some sex with whoever is at your house this week and leave me alone for the time being." Duo crammed his hands into his pants pockets and started down the sidewalk at a brisk pace. He heard Chang take off, burning rubber, and basically ignored it all.


	2. Chapter 2 Crossroads

Luck would have it that as soon as he started walking the sky would open up. It didn't take long for his braid to soak up the rain and lay heavy on his back. He walked past a street garden that was on his right and could see the tiny sprites scurrying to shelter. Some would get splattered by a rain drop and almost knocked out of the air because of it.

Duo sighed as he turned the corner on which his apartment building sat. It wasn't it the greatest of neighborhoods, more like bordering on the bad side of town and hanging onto the edge of the more upright citizens of society. The building itself looked more like an ancient church that an apartment building. It had spires on the front wall and the place was a maze more than anything else. Duo felt at home here and did not plan on leaving anytime soon.

His next door neighbor, Kitty, as she liked to be called, sat on the front stoop of the building just out of the rain. She was the crazy cat lady that every neighborhood has. She could be quite talkative and he really hoped that she wouldn't bother him tonight with one of her stories of her childhood.

He looked her over and couldn't help but feel a little pity for her. Her hair was almost all gray and white, frizzed to the point of being untamable. Her skin was dried and wrinkled, her face almost looking like a shrunken prune. She had long thin limbs without much meat on them. Her voice sounded like what the kiddies were told witches sounded like before they were known to truly exist.

"Why look at you, Duo," her voice the sound of gravel being turned over. "You get caught out in the rain again? Was that the handsome Mr. Chang that I saw taking off at the corner? Did you get into a fight again?" Boy she could be nosy.

"Hello to you to, Kitty. I decided that I no longer needed a ride. What are you doing out here at this hour of the night?"

"It's raining. I love watching it rain. How about you?" she asked.

"As long as I'm inside, which by the way, is where I am going and you should too," Duo told her as he walked past her and into the apartment building before she could say anything else to him. Right inside the door were the mail boxes for the entire building. Fifty-five boxes for just a tad few more rooms. Some people kept their postage at the bank.

Duo opened his box and pulled out the few envelopes that were in there and walked towards the stairs. With the mail in one hand, he started to search for the keys with the other. He always had them in a different pocket and he did not know why he did such a thing except that it was by habit.

After he found the right key on the right ring he noticed that he had a grand total of two bills and a bulk of junk mail that seemed to show up every day. He walked the five flights of stairs without a problem as he listened to the occupants of the building settle in for the night. Most of the people that lived here were either nulls or something close to it. A witch or warlock just did not cut it in their neighborhood.

Duo unlocked his door to the tune of several cats meowing their displeasure of him not being their owner. Inside his apartment, his own cat greeted him with a hearty meow of its own. Duo absent-mindedly scratched the gray tomcat behind the ears and pushed the play button on his answering machine. There was a very irate message left by Wufei on the machine.

"Duo, I know that you are probably mad right now, but get over it. There is a crime scene that you can come to if you get your ass in gear. I'll have to swing back around to come and get you, but we should still get to the scene with enough time to take you through the ropes." There was a pause and Duo thought for a moment that the machine just didn't turn off at the end of the message, but he was wrong. "And get a damn cell phone for crying out loud!"

"No more messages," chirped the answering machine. Duo looked down at himself and came to the conclusion that he would definitely be in need of changing before he went back out into the night.

Suddenly his there was a knock on his door. Duo was still fuming when he opened the door to a similarly angry Wufei. Wufei did not want nor wait for an invitation.

"If that is what you are wearing, then let's get going," Wufei barked at him.

"Wait five minutes and I'll be ready," Duo told him as he closed the door and went into the back of the apartment where his bedroom was. "Why are they letting me come to the scene already?" Duo hollered out to Wufei while looking for dried clothing.

"Peters is sick."

"I see. But that still does not explain why I'm coming with you."

"I told them that one more person being there wasn't going to hurt things." Wufei was poking around in the front room while he waited. Duo's apartment looked like organized chaos. There were books piled on every available space from as many genres as there could be. Wufei was suitably impressed when he found a couple of books in German and Slavic. There were two large posters on the walls that depicted scenes from fairy tales, or what humans had thought were fairy tales.

"So, I'm just another warm body?" Duo asked as he came down the hallway to the front room.

"If you want to put it that way, yes, but you just might get to touch things in this situation that we can't. That is why you are going." Wufei looked up from a Chinese literature book and was surprised to see Duo in a slim pair of of black jeans and a loose fitting dark gray button-down shirt.

"Do you have your sigils?" Wufei asked.

"I can grab them. Why do you want me to bring them?"

"I'll explain on the way, but we have to get going."

"Fine," Duo replied. He grabbed a second pair of sigils off the kitchen counter and shooed Wufei out the door and locked it behind them.

"So why is it that you want me to come again? And what do you mean that I might be able to touch things that you guys can't?" Duo asked as he shifted again in the seat. Wufei's car was nice, but he wasn't sure how the other man was ever comfortable in the tiny car.

"We need a null at the scene. All we can tell is that something went wrong with a spell and we need somebody that won't get shocked with the backlash."

"You guys really need to get over your not hiring of nulls then, seriously," Duo grumbled. Up ahead he could see the flashing lights of the police cars that had already arrived at the scene. "Plenty of people here tonight," he muttered under his breath.

They found enough room to park about half a block away from the scene. It was in the middle of the night, but that did not stop the neighbors from coming out of their houses in their pajamas and slippers. There was already a crowd of local news stations hovering around the edges like vultures at a new kill.

Chang pushed his way through the throng of people, making way for Duo to follow him. They went under the police tap as Chang showed his badge. He also pulled out a temp badge and handed it to Duo. It wouldn't work for long term, but for tonight it was just fine. Duo glanced up at the house ahead. It was nice, in a yuppie sort of way. The lawn was done to a perfection only the rich could have. They even had a small fountain set back into a corner of the yard. The house was bone white with pale lavender shutters. The door itself was a deep mahogany that gleamed even in the dim lights from the street.

"Nice place," Duo mumbled.

"Yeah," was Wufei's only reply. They went in through the front door. Other policeman nodded or greeted Wufei as they walked down the hall. Wufei was more of an investigator, so he didn't have to wear a uniform, but with his very Asian features, he was always easily recognized.

"Where is the body?" Wufei asked Charles, who was in charge of the scene. Charles looked as if he was made too tall to be in his skin. He was pale white with almost white-blonde hair. He had a large hooked nose that set above very thin almost bloodless lips. He looked like something that should have died a long time ago, but something was animating his body. The only thing that made him seem alive was his voice. It was a rich bass voice that could fill up a room.

"It is upstairs, last room on the right," Charles told them, quick to the point. "I don't know what is going on here Chang, but be careful. The backlash seems pretty vicious tonight."

"Do you have any idea what could have happened?" Chang asked.

"Let's just go take a look at the room first. Then you can tell me what you think." Chang shrugged his shoulders in agreement and made a motion for the policeman to lead the way.

"Where's Peters?" Charles asked.

"He couldn't make it tonight," Chang replied. "This is Duo Maxwell. He's the null that I've been trying to get into the unit."

"Ah. Well I hope he doesn't have a weak stomach. Just don't throw up inside the crime scene, kid."

"I've heard it all before," Duo told him. He actually had not been to any crime scenes yet, but how bad could it be? As they came to the door of the crime scene, Charles stopped and turned to look at them.

"Basically everything has been done that can be done at this point. We called you in so that you can give us the heads up in the investigative department. Just go in there and see what you can see from the mess. You can touch things, just don't step in anything and leave things where they are."

Charles opened the door and stood back so that they could enter. Wufei went right up to the doorway and had to take a step back. Duo looked at his friend with a question in his eyes, but decided to go ahead and enter the room anyways. He looked at the room as a whole, and wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. He turned to Wufei to ask a question, but he didn't get the words out of his mouth.

Suddenly, Duo was thrown to the ground with Chang on top of him. Duo wanted to yell and scream, but he found that he could hardly breathe with the other man on top of him. There was a lot of yelling and too many people in too tight of a space. Duo finally shoved Wufei off of him and the other man scurried back into the hallway.

"What the hell just happened?" Duo demanded.

"Look at the wall, just to the left of where you were standing," Wufei told him, clearly shaken. Duo did as he was told, and he saw a black scorch mark at about the height of his head, just to the left of where he was standing.

"What is that?"

"A death spell," Wufei told him. "I think."

"You think? What do you mean, you think?!" Duo not being comfortable with what was happening was an understatement. He was a null. Nulls should not be able to be targeted.

"Well, it could have been for me," Wufei started to say. "But, I wasn't able to go into the room in the first place." He looked at Charles. "I thought you guys would have broken what shield that would have been in place when you first got here," he told Charles angrily.

"The lesser witches that I have on my team could not enter the room. Hell, even I couldn't do much other than get just inside the doorway. That is why I called you, Chang. To see if you could get through and what would happen if you did."

"Well, you could have told me at least some of that before we try to go waltzing into the room. Sheesh, if I hadn't seen the bolt, one of us could also be dead right now. Duo, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think," Duo muttered as he rubbed his ribs where Chang had landed an elbow by accident.

"Did you see the bolt?" Chang asked Duo.

"No, I didn't see anything," Duo told him. He looked around the room once again, but stayed by the doorway where he felt marginally safer.

"I don't think it was for you. I mean, it couldn't have been for you." Wufei sounded confused.

"Why didn't you go into the room in front of me Chang?"

"I couldn't. Something kept me from going any further than the doorway. Like this horrid feeling that something would happen if I passed into the room."

"And you couldn't tell me that?" Duo asked incredulously. "Was it the same for you Charles?"

"Yeah, it has been the same for most of us. I don't understand though. The coroner was able to move in and out of the room with no problem. He's one of the highest warlocks that we have on staff, but he didn't say anything about not being able to be in the room. I just don't get it."

"I didn't see or feel anything," Duo said. "Do you guys think it is safe to go back in there now?" Duo was trying not to sound too hopeful, but he didn't think he managed very well when they both looked at him like he was crazy. "Look, you brought me here for a reason, let's put it to good use. Chang, why don't you go ahead of me for a moment and see if there is anything else that you can sense. But, if you can sense something, could you let me know this time?"

Wufei gave him a wry smile and stepped through the door way. His eyes became unfocused as he reached out in front of him with his senses that made him a witch. After a moment he took a step back out into the hallway.

"You can go in," he said. "Just be careful, okay? And if I say anything, you haul your butt back out here and not question it. Got it?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Duo replied. He took a step into the room and tried once again to make sense of what was inside the room. What remained of the body laid in the center of the bed. Each limb was spread out around the body, but was no longer attached to the wet lump that sat there. The sheet and blanket, along with the pillows, had been thrown to the corner of the room, so they didn't obstruct his view at all.

It just didn't make sense. His mind didn't want to see all that was there. As if something was keeping him from seeing everything in front of him. He walked closer to the bed, looking all around it. It seemed as if the blood was only on the bed, but there didn't seem to be enough of it there.

With another step, his foot made a squishing noise. He looked down and he could see blood swelling up around his shoe. He took a step back and leaned down over the spot that was now a bloody foot print. Something made him want to touch it. He had to touch it, even if it didn't make any sense. His hand was a mere inch away from the print when Wufei and Charles started to yell in unison. He paid them no mind as he touched the blood with his fingertips.

As soon as he made contact, he was thrown backwards through the room and up against the wall. He watched, breathless and dumbfounded, as the bloody print grew wider in both directions. He sat there and watched as a blood circle went around the edges of the bed and up the wall. In the middle of the wall, another path started towards the ceiling. On the ceiling, it circled down into a spiral with a triangle hovering over its center.

Duo looked up in wonder as the ceiling dripped with blood and then all was black as he passed out cold up against the wall


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Crossroads

Duo could remember growing up in his old neighborhood. It was popular for children to come into their power about the time they hit puberty, a true double wammy. Duo would stay up for hours each night hoping and praying that he would come into -his- power that night, or maybe even the next day. Most of his friends had something to strive for. Some became empaths of varying strengths. This seemed to be the most popular type of magical power. Then there were the earth witches and those that gathered in the dark of night. There were those of the light and those of the dark and everything in between.

He could remember the one friend that he had growing up. The little boy's name had been Quatre. He was small, had blonde hair and got picked on a lot for liking the color pink. The boy had been younger than Duo by about two years, and when they met, they hit it off wonderfully. Duo would stand up the other boy and in return he earned Quatre's undying respect.

Until they hit puberty.

All of a sudden, Quatre started to act different and Duo didn't know what to do. Like a lot of childhood friends, they drifted apart in spurts until there was nothing left between them. Quatre started to act as if he was scared to be around Duo, but would not tell him why the case may be. Duo would get frustrated more often than not, and end up storming away.

He could remember the parks starting to fill with miniature gardens as the pixies and fairies were slowly coming out of hiding and adding their green thumb expertise. Pixies loved to chitter and chatter while the fairies were more prone to singing into the night sky and mimicing the song birds of the area. Sprites were a totally different story. They almost always glowed with an excitement as if they knew something you didn't, but they would let you in on their little secret if you could only bribe them enough to divulge them. Honey was an interesting bartering tool for the longest time as the demand for it sky-rocketed almost overnight.

It was dark, and memories swirled through his mind. Why was it dark? He could not answer that question himself and that became a bit worrisome. But, there was nothing that he could do. His mind felt as if it had been burned from the synapses outwards. He was not sure if the sensations he felt were pain. He heard voices in the distance, but he really just wanted them to go away.

He wanted to think about Quatre some more, about the times that weren't that bad, back when they were just two kids up against the bigger bullies. Quatre was something nice, something warm and fuzzy. He wanted to feel like that again. Feel protective of somebody other than himself. He reached out for those memories, but they became harder to grasp. They were elusive wisps flitting through his trembling fingers.

"Clear!" Duo gasped awake, smelling burnt skin and his chest aching. He tried to sit up, but was held down by more than one pair of hands.

"Just stay down, Duo," Chang growled close to his face. Duo glance up at the Chinese man and could really see how off-balance the man was.

"Wha-" His voice cracked and he cleared his throat, which turned into a cough. He hunched over as a coughing fit took over his body. "What just happened?" he was able to wheeze out between lips that were cracked.

"It didn't -just- happen. Technically your heart stopped beating for about five minutes there, young man," a young paramedic said to him, unbelieving even though he saw it first hand. Duo looked around him, and the people that he could see from his prone position nodded their heads in agreement.

"I thought you said you didn't sense anything, Chang?" He leveled a glare at the other man still leaning over him. Chang looked chargined, but didn't say anything for a moment.

"I didn't," Chang said quietly. "Duo, I thought we had lost you."

"What did happen?" Duo wanted to know as they finally let him sit up. He looked down at his fingertips which had drying flecks of dark red blood. Uneasiness started to grow in the pit of his stomach as he watched Chang gather his words.

"Some kind of bubble, of power, seemed to grow larger and larger as you reached down to touch the blood. What made you reach down and touch it?"

"I don't know," Duo answered. He struggled to prop himself up against the wall and finally succeeded. "I felt like it was calling out to me, if that makes any sense." Chang nodded his head and seemed to be struggling for words again.

"As you reached down, we yelled, if you remember. Your hand touched the blood, and that bubble of power popped, or more like exploded. Everybody was thrown back, but you were hit with most of the backlash, which I don't understand. It should have went around you, almost like that death spell. It was targeted in your direction, but it didn't end up hitting you."

"It was a damn close call," Duo practically yelled. The uneasiness was growing and the acid from his stomach started to burn at the back of his throat. Chang waved a hand to quiet him again.

"Either way, it did not hit you. I thought it was just dumb luck. But now I don't know. This backlash though, it stopped your heart. It was like it was waiting for you to touch it." Chang took a moment to gather his breath. "Look at what happened," he said as he pointed to where the bed stood to the side of the room.

Duo looked over at the bed and his jaw dropped open wide. There was a spiral of ever-tightening circles from the ceiling to right above the bed. They were deep red with life's blood. Within these circles was a triangle with a corner pointed directly down to the center of the bed. Each mark dripped with the blood, onto the bed, from the bed to the floor. From the floor, it flowed -up- the wall, back to the ceiling. Duo could honestly say that he had never seen anything like it before.

"What is that?" Duo asked, proud that his voice didn't waver.

"That is what we would like to know. Like I said, and you said, that it was somehow waiting for you, calling for you." Chang looked at his long-time friend, scrutinizing him with more than just his eyes. "You feel different, Duo."

"What do you mean, I feel different? How different?" Duo's eyes grew as wide as saucers and his pupils almost swallowed up by his violet irises.

"I don't know," the other man said slowly. He stood from his squatting position and stretched out the tired muscles of sitting there too long in that position. He paced back and forth the smaller man and glared at any cop that came near the two of them. It was known that Chang was bringing in a null, not somebody that could create something like this.

"What do you mean you. do. not. know?" Duo was getting more scared by the moment and did not like it one bit.

"I can't explain it in words. I have never seen anything like this before."

"Well, somebody needs to be doing some explaining instead of just twiddling their thumbs up their asses," he grated out between clenched teeth. "Hey, what happened to my shirt?" He looked around and found what might be it a couple feet away.

"Right over there," his friend so aptly helped him locate the shreds that were his shirt. It did not look like it would be worn again.

"What happened to it?"

"Well, they had to cut it off of you to restart your heart," his friend said rather succinctly.

"I guess that makes sense, but back to this room. What is going on now?" he looked past Chang to where all of the police, or at least a good portion of those that were inside the house, were bunched together right outside the door.

"Nobody is sure where to go from here, so we, or rather they, are trying to figure it out while we try to keep you alive," Chang pointed out.

"Sure, sure. No problem."

"I think they are trying to call in a specialist, so... yeah. Can you stand, Duo?"

"I might as well try," Duo answered and took the hand that was offered to him to stand up. His head swam a bit from changing position too fast and he almost fell back down to sit on the floor. He braced himself against the wall with one hand and with the other, warded off Chang's help. "I can stand, just give me a moment."

After about a minute or so, he was able to walk out of the room with just a little bit of effort. The tide of blue police uniforms divided and made way for the walking dead, as they were calling him. Duo knew now was the time to get out of the house and grab a smoke. His chest burned from where they tried to restart his heart for all of five minutes before he was able to breathe on his own.

Once outside, he found a quiet piece of yard and pulled out a cigarette. He searched for a lighter and ended up having to borrow one from a passing police officer. They were more than happy to light him up, while joking that he had already died once tonight, what is another cigarette going to hurt. Duo could not have agreed more. He had lost Chang somewhere along the way out to this bit of yard, but was sure that the other man would be able to find him without much of a problem. It was not long before the other man found him with his cigarette almost gone.

"I complain about you not having a cell phone, but you will stand here and smoke those things. They cost more than a phone, anyhow. So, how do you explain that?" Chang asked him, hands stuffed down into his pockets. All Duo could do was shrug in response.

"What time is it?" Duo asked as he exhaled a string of smoke rings into the cool night air. He was standing there topless, but did not feel weird about it in the slightest.

"Almost 3 a.m." was the answer he received. With the last inhale, the butt glowed brightly and slowly fizzled out after hitting the dew-wet grass. He glanced up in time for a new car to show up at the crime scene. He watched as a man got out and couldn't help but taking the sight of the man at face value.

The guy had the longest hair he had ever seen on a man, and that included his own hair that fell well past his waist. One might have thought that this fact would make the man be overly feminine, but that was not the case. The man was tall and had a very squared jaw, a thick nose and very blonde eyebrows. He had pouty lips that were placed in a frown, and Duo wanted to do something to get rid of that frown.

Duo had to shake himself awake to keep from walking over there. What in the world was his deal? The man was good looking, but not -that- good looking. He then noticed that the man almost glowed in the lights from the police cars that were over-crowding the street. Duo glanced at Chang and noticed that the man seemed completely unfazed. If anything he looked even unhappier about this latest development.

"So, who is he?" Duo asked.

"That, would be their so called expert that somebody thought would be a good idea to bring onto this scene."

"Is he really glowing?" Duo didn't know how else to explain it. Chang looked at him sharply and reached out with his senses again to try to probe around Duo's psychi. There was something undeniably different about his friend, but nothing that would jump out and let him know what it actually was.

"Yes," Chang said slowly. "He gives off a glow because he's a human faerie. You know, from the old world?" Duo reached up and scratched his head where his braid met the base of his skull.

"From the old world? Right," he drawled out.

"Anyways, you've been around such people before. Are you just now noticing a glow from them? Him in particular?"

"Well, I've never seen it before, so I guess that is a yes?" Duo said questioningly.

"Duo, you are a null. Nulls aren't supposed to see the glow. You never have before..." Chang became very worried with this development. But, he still could not feel anything remotely magical from the other man.

"Why is that guy coming over here?" Duo asked, finally uncomfortable with being half naked in front of people.

"Probably to talk to you. Probably going to try to get you to go back into that room."

"Right..."

"Duo Maxwell, right?" The tall blonde nearly chirped while holding his right hand out in greeting. Duo nodded and tentatively put his hand out in return. "I'm Zechs Marquise." Duo nodded dumbly again, totally taken back with this other man's beauty. He was quite sure he liked men as he always had, but what was so different about this man that stood in front of him?

When their hands touched, a jolt jumped from the man's hand and up Duo's arm.

"What the hell was that?" Duo almost screamed and jerked his hand out and away from Zechs.

"I was feeling your aura. Everyone here believes that you are a null," Zechs said with a smirk and looking over Duo from head to foot.

"Does that usually happen?" Duo asked.

"No. No, it doesn't," was the answer he was given. "But, I must tell you something." He paused and Duo was sure it was just the man's way of being flamboyant and dramatic.


	4. Chapter 4

Note: Chimeric - unreal; imaginary; highly unrealistic

Antonym – Real.

Note: A bit longer for the longer wait.

"I have to quit doing this," Duo groaned as he leaned up against the fence that surrounded the front yard. Chang gave him a wry grin and silently agreed with him. "Where did tall, light, and studly go?" This brought a snort from the other man.

"I am pretty sure he went into the house," was the answer. "He told me to bring you back in when you are feeling up to it, before you decide to leave the property."

"Well, I have some questions to ask him myself. I don't think he knows what he is talking about. I'm a null, there is nothing else to that."

"He's a long-lived being that has been around quite awhile, Duo. I would listen to what he has to say." Wufei did not like the tree-hugging light being, but he had to admit that he usually knew what he was talking about. "I told you that you felt different," he said defensively.

"Wufei, I'm the same I was two hours ago. There is nothing different about me," Duo said adamantly, not sure which one of them he was trying to convince more.

"Says you."

"Yes, says me. Help me up, here." Duo let out a grunt as he was pulled to his feet none too gently. They made their way through the blue police forms that had done nothing but continue to get thicker as time went on, or so it seemed. Like before, they parted ways as they saw Duo come towards them.

Inside the house was a bit more clear as information was gathered and it became closer to the time they could all leave. As he entered the house it was as if Duo had come into the house for the first time. There was a tang on the back of his tongue that had nothing to do with the blood that was spilled upstairs. He wasn't sure what it was, but he had a feeling that he wouldn't like the answer if he had asked. There was also a smell that hung heavily in the air, almost as if something had been burnt recently.

Duo glanced over at Wufei and it didn't look like the other man was acting any different than he usually was.

"What's that smell?" Duo ventured to ask at his own risk.

"What smell?" Wufei asked in return.

"Something burnt. Was it just their meal that was in the oven too long or-"

"Oh, that... You will get used to it. It means that magic has gone wrong and there was ill intent from the magic user."

"You can tell all of that from the smell?" Duo's eyes widened a bit in amazement. Why had he never noticed that before? He had been around many magic users all his life, but he had never sensed anything like this.

"Basically." Wufei led the way up the stairs and down to the back bedroom at the end of the hall. They stopped, sharing the doorway as they looked into the room again. This time, Duo was not sure of himself and really did not want to walk back into that room again. He did not know what happened earlier, and he did not want anything of the same nature to happen again.

"Welcome back," Zechs called out. He had a grim look on his face, but it was not unwelcoming. He came from around the other side of the bed with his hands held up and walked towards the door. "I see that you are faring better now."

Duo snorted and took one step into the room. "So, what happened here? Do you know?"

"Do you make it a habit of passing out at crime scenes, Duo Maxwell?" Duo did not like how this man was saying his name. Like it was candy to roll around on the center of your tongue and savor every bit of it.

"Just get to the point," Duo snarled.

"Touchy, touchy. Come further into the room, so that I can see if the blood will react to you again," Zechs told him.

"I'd rather not."

"I would rather he did not," Wufei said at the same time as Duo.

"I can speak for myself," Duo berated his friend. He glanced over to the bed once again. The blood was still in constant motion, but it was much darker than before, the red almost black. "Why is it doing that?"

"Well, I can't be 100 percent positive, but I think it is waiting for somebody to finish the ritual."

"What do you mean, finish it? I thought it was done and over with." Zechs gave a small laugh.

"I think it is waiting for you."

"Damn well should not be. I am a null." Duo clung to this as his last hope against the swelling uneasiness that was starting to grow in his stomach again.

"You are as much of a null as I am an evil lizard." The guy thought he was funny or something.

"Okay, wise guy, what the hell do you want me to do?" Goosebumps ran up up his arms and down his back. The air conditioning was on and a vent was right above his head. He really hoped that he could get a shirt soon. "And what do you mean that it is waiting for me?"

"Well, if you are a null, as you have stated many a time now, then you will only get a bit dirty. It won't change anything and then you can turn around and walk away." Duo nodded, this much he could deal with. It was late and he wanted to get back home before the sun rose above the horizon.

"Please come towards the bed. Watch it, do not step in the blood." The man also mumbled something under his breath that he could not hear, but Duo decided to ignore it for the moment. "There, that's good." Zechs had Duo stand at the foot of the bed, facing away from the door. Duo still looked unsure of himself, but Wufei had said that the guy knew his stuff.

"Place your right hand in in front of you, palm facing the bed, about chest height." Duo did as he was told, trying to keep his face a blank mask. He turned his head to look out the door and saw that he had attracted another crowd.

"When I tell you to, slowly reach out with your hand until it is over the edge of the bed." Zechs ignored the growing crowd and stepped closer to Duo, but still a little behind the man. He was hoping if there was any backlash, then Duo would take the brunt of it and he would remain safe.

"Okay, now, slowly, push out with your hand. You should feel some resistance. Tell me when you push past it." Zechs believed that the spell was waiting for Duo and that they had to act before the moving blood had changed completely to black in color. Even he did not want to be around when that happened.

Duo faced the bed and watched the blood along the wall behind the bed. It swirled counter-clockwise. There was just something tangibly wrong about the whole situation. He tried to keep his mind off the body that lay on the bed. The sheets seem to have been drained of all the blood, leaving the victim seem even more bare. Here, the stench was stronger and the smell of her bowels was strong enough to make him want to leave the room. But, if Zechs was correct, then he had to do this. Maybe, perhaps, he could find a clue as to who had done this.

He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and slowly let it out as he pushed his hand forward. Like Zechs said, there was a firm resistance in the air. Almost as if he had to push through mud, but he could not see anything in front of him. He pushed harder, and was slowly successful. All of a sudden, the pressure that was in front of him was gone. He stumbled forward, trying to catch himself, but fell face first into something invisible.

"Keep your hand up," Zechs yelled. "Watch!" Duo regained his footing and tried to ignore the pain in his nose from hitting the invisible wall. "Spread your fingers apart and cup your palm as if you were palming a ball."

Duo did as he was told, and watched what was unfolding in front of him. The blood on the wall shot through the triangle hovering above the mattress. The three dimensional triangle filled with blood, slowly at first, but more steadily as Duo's breathing hitched and it became noticeably hard for him to breath.

In. Out. In. Out.

The triangle was almost filled to the top when Duo suddenly felt that he really did not want to be standing there when it filled all the way.

"Do not move," Zechs growled. Duo had second thoughts about obeying that order, but tried to stand firm.

The triangle filled to the top and still blood was trying to push its way into the center. Something, he was not sure what, pushed back at his hand, traveled up his arm, and into his chest. The tension in the room continued to climb and he started to fidget. He cried out as there suddenly was a loud popping noise and the triangle shape exploded. Blood spurted out from the center above the bed, covering every available surface in the room. The dresser, each one of the walls, the carpet - it was all covered in dark red blood.

Duo was dripping with the substance. His skin ached from the hotness of it, even his face was covered.

"Can, can I move now?" Duo asked, clearly shaken.

"Um, yeah," Zechs replied sounding just as shaken as the man in front of him. Standing just off to the side and behind Duo, he fared better out of the two of them.

Duo pulled his hand back towards him and used his other hand, somewhat cleaner, to try to wipe the blood from his face. He looked towards the door and saw that Wufei had not been spared. There were even blood spatters that one could see into the hallway. "What the hell was that?" Duo asked, sounding angry and not feeling bad about it.

"Yes, Zechs, did you know that was going to happen?"

Duo, with the blood wiped from his eyes, looked at the bed once again. The marks were gone. There were no more concentric circles, there was no more triangle, and there were no more blood trails around the bed, on the wall above the headboard, or coming down from the ceiling. He wanted to sit down, but there was too much blood on the floor.

It looked as if more than one person had died in here and had been completely drained of their blood. Where had it all come from? He did not realize that he had spoken this aloud until Zechs spoke up behind him.

"It was witch's blood. It thins out to the point of inconsistency and can look like there is much more than there really is." Duo nodded like this made complete sense.

"I am so done right now," Duo said loudly. His hands were shaking and his knees did not seem to want to hold him upright. He pushed past Zechs and almost ran from the room.

"Duo!" Wufei called to him and tried to follow the other man. The police were packed into the hallway, everybody that could feel magic wanted to know what in the world just happened.

"Chang," Zechs yelled before the Chinese man got too far away from the room. "Let him calm down for a moment. It's no wonder that he wants to get out of here as fast as his little legs can carry him."

"Are you seriously joking right now? Really?" Wufei was pissed. "How dare you try to stick a null in that mess. What if the back lash had killed him? Or you! What would you have done then?"

"Settle down. I was not expecting that strong of a reaction, true, but I think it went rather well." As he was saying this, he was removing his suit jacket that was also dripping with blood. "And, I do not know how many times that I have to repeat this, but he is not a null."

"He does not hold magic like we do," Wufei insisted.

"While that is true, that does not mean that he is a null. A null could not have done what he did back in there." They were walking down the hallway towards the front door, suspecting that Duo was back outside and somewhere in the yard. They passed a large crime scene trash bag, and Zechs dumped his suit jacket into it.

"Then what the hell is he?" Wufei asked, exasperated.

"Well, that is where it gets tricky," Zechs calmly stated. Inside, he was anything but calm. But, if he was right, then it would be the biggest discovery in recent history.

Outside, they saw Duo bent over the flower bed dry heaving. A very nice female cop was kneeling down beside him, holding his braid out of the way and saying soothing words to the young man. She saw Wufei and Zechs approaching and told Duo. Wufei could see that Duo had wiped off a lot of the blood that had clung to his skin. There were red splotches here and there on his skin from the thin blood drying too fast before he got a hold of the towel that lay at his feet.

"So, you pass out and throw up at crime scenes," Zechs teased.

"Fuck off," Duo growled out bitterly.

"Do you have any idea what you did in there, Duo?"

"Does it look like I have any idea what I did?"

"Well, no, but I figured you would have a question or two about-"

"Of course I have questions!" Duo yelled. He pulled his braid out of the woman's hands and stood up. "How dare you put me in that situation!"

"Oh come off of it. You were just as curious as I was to see what would happen." Zechs yelled right back. "Besides, by the spell reacting to you so violently just proves my point that you are not a null."

"Then what am I?"

"See here, that is the tricky part, but I am almost positive about that answer. You, my dear youngling, are a chimeric."

"Huh?" Duo so aptly replied.

"Shit," Wufei uttered, not too far away from where Duo was standing.

"For all intents and purposes, you should not exist," Zechs replied. He crossed his arms and too late realized that there was blood on the back of his hands that was now on the undersides of his arms. He shrugged it off and continued to try to explain something he did not totally understand himself.

"A chimeric is something our ancestors came up with to explain how a null could come into magic long after the time they should have come into power. These were the beings that were hunted down and killed on sight because they could just not keep their magic hidden from the eyes of the church. As far as we knew, this type of being had become extinct."

"So... what does this mean for me?"

"I would be very careful in the next couple of days as you will notice that you are completely open to the world of magic now. You will be able to move faster, see more clearly, and your thinking processes will increase in speed and clarity."

"This does not make any sense," Duo muttered. He looked down at his hands that still had a slight tremor to them.

"You are now a magic dweller. Your powers will grow exponentially over the next couple of weeks. Your magic is different from ours. Your aura will leak and don't be surprised if people avoid you out in public. I don't know much else to tell you at this point. I have some old contacts that I can get in touch with that may be able to give me some more information to pass on to you. I'm sorry that I cannot do more at this time."

"I don't think that it is your fault, so I guess don't worry about it too much," Duo told him. He turned to Wufei. "Can I go home now?"

"Uhm, sure?" Wufei made it into a question as he looked at Zechs for confirmation.

"I don't see why not. I saw what happened upstairs. You guys can go for now. Wufei, we'll meet tomorrow to go over everything that we can to move forward with the investigation."

"All right," he said with a nod. "Let's go Duo." Duo nodded and followed Wufei out of the yard and to the car that was parked a bit down the street so that he could go home and try to go to bed.


	5. Chapter 5

Note: My accelerated classes started on Monday. So... my updates might be a little slower, but I am determined to see this through. Also, for all of you that have left me comments, they are greatly appreciated, they feed my muse.

Also note: My girlfriend is being induced Friday morning at 4 am. Our baby is going to finally be here. Between that and school I am not going to have much time. I will continue though, so no worries there.

Chapter 5 Crossroads

Wufei and Duo reached the tiny sports car and Duo had to stop and look at himself. He still had patches of blood on his bare skin and his pants were soaked through. He really did not want to get into the car and mess up the seat's fabric.

"Do you have something that I can at least sit on?" Duo asked his friend while remaining skeptical. "I do not want to ruin your seat or make you have a horrendous cleaning bill."

Wufei popped open the trunk with a push of a button. "There should be a sheet or two back there for occasions like these."

"What, you give people covered in blood rides home?" That was said with a leer and a raised eyebrow.

"Occasions such as crime scene investigation screw ups," Wufei snarked back.

"I see, I see." Duo went to the back of the car and sure enough, there was a sheet balled up and stuffed into the far corner of the trunk. He grabbed it, shut the trunk, and made his way back to the front seat of the car.

They both buckled their seat belts and soon they were on their way back to Duo's apartment. There was a thick silence in the car, but it was not an uncomfortable one. Duo sunk further down into the seat and placed his chin on the palm of his hand as he looked out the window.

"So, what do you know about chimerics?" Duo burst into the quietness. He looked over at his friend who was very carefully keeping his face a blank mask.

"There is not much known about them, nor has information passed down through the generations. Zechs was correct that it was very hard for the chimerics to hide what they were. They just oozed raw power and it did not take a genius to realize that these beings were made of magic."

"What is up with tall, white, and studly, by the way? Why did I have trouble thinking around him, or why was it hard to complete sentence?" Wufei cleared his throat and thought carefully on how to answer the question.

"He is one of the more powerful magical beings in the area. He tends to leak his glamor magic without really noticing it. He could probably hide it a lot better than he does, but he likes the reactions he gets from people." Wufei paused here for a moment as he came to a stop at a red light.

"He is correct though, if you were a null, as you have believed for many years, none of tonight would have affected you as it had."

"So, let me get this straight. He leaks glamor? That means people are made to think that they like, or even feel attracted, to him?" Wufei nodded. "But, he is so not my type," Duo grumbled.

"Do you even know what your type is?" Wufei prodded in jest.

"Oh I don't even want to hear it. At least if I could figure out what my type is, I think it is safe to say that I would have one partner for a longer period of time than you seem to keep any of your lovers," Duo snarked, but all he got was a shrug of his shoulders for his troubles. "And what did happen tonight?"

"What do you mean?" Wufei looked over to him and then accelerated through the intersection as the light turned green.

"The blood – wait, you guys said that it was witches blood, right?" Wufei nodded for Duo to continue. "It moved. How in the world does that even happen?"

"It was a spell-"

"Yes! I know it was a spell," Duo yelled, exasperated. "How does one even know how to do such a thing? That is just so wrong!"

"Hey, you are the one that came to me. You are the one that was asking for a job. We needed a null, and you fit the bill. Well, until tonight that is." Duo grew more irritated the more that Wufei spoke. It is not like he planned on anything like this to happen.

"Oh, just get me home," Duo snapped. He really needed a shower and to get to bed. If he looked eastward, he could see the sky was just a bit brighter. This night had gone on long enough. He let out a sigh of relief as Wufei pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building.

"Do you want me to walk up with you?" Wufei asked.

"No, I'll be fine." As the car rolled to a stop, Duo unbuckled his seat belt and stepped out of the car.

"I will call you later to check up on you."

"Let me have about half the day before you try to call me. I'm unplugging my phone as soon as I walk in the door."

"Fine, fine." Duo shut his door and Wufei wasted no time backing up and almost squealing tires as he pulled out of the parking lot. Duo sighed again and pulled out his key ring and swore as his sigils fell out of his pocket and onto the ground.

"Looks like it just isn't your night," a voice called out from the shadows. Duo grabbed his sigils and stood up quickly. A man, not much taller than himself, came out of the shadows to stand in the light. Duo looked down at himself. Yes, he was still shirtless, but it looked like dirt instead of blood since he wasn't standing directly under one of the parking lights.

He stared at the man that was now standing in front of him. He had wild brown hair that stood out in several directions and hung down into his eyes. He was lean and wiry, thin and tall. He wore a tank top that showed off a slender chest and long slender arms. He wore a pair of jeans low on his hips and Duo had to admit to himself that the guy looked pretty darn good.

"You must have some night," the stranger said, waving a hand towards Duo. He had a lopsided grin that had to have many of the opposite sex drooling over him.

"You could say that," Duo replied as he stepped into the light on the way to the front door of the building. He could hear the other man gasp as the blood became very apparent.

"Um, hey, I don't know if it is any of my business -"

"You are right, it is not any of your business. Now goodnight." With a sharp nod of his head, Duo opened the door to the apartment building and headed inside. The stranger followed close behind. "I take it that you can't take a hint?"

Suddenly, one of his sigils lit up bright enough that Duo threw one hand up to cover his eyes. At the same time he felt as if somebody was poking him, or rather reaching out to him in a way that he had never felt before.

"What the hell are you doing, stranger?"

"You feel... interesting," the stranger replied. Duo looked down at his sigils carefully to decipher which one had lit up like a Christmas tree. The sigil of protection, of shielding, had almost as quickly dimmed down to a low light.

"I really wish that you guys wouldn't do things like that without telling me first."

"Huh? What do you mean you guys?" the stranger asked.

"Long story. Now, who the hell are you and what do you think you are trying to do?"

"I'm sorry, my name is Heero."

"Okay, Heero, leave me the hell alone and mind your own business. I don't need a random person out of the freaking blue telling me that there is something wrong with me."

"But you have blood all over you. It is blood, right?"

"Is it really any of your business?"

"Well, you are walking into my home covered in blood. From my initial findings, it is not your blood, but you don't have any feelings of ill will that makes me think that the blood is from you harming another."

"Let me tell you something, buddy. I am definitely starting to feel some "ill will" towards you. Now get out of my damn way so I can get into my apartment and go to sleep before the sun is all the way up." Duo was getting pissed off rather quickly and he just wanted this guy to go away and leave him alone.

"Hn," was the only answer he received as he started up the stairs without a look back. As he walked further away from the stranger. He scowled and stomped up the stairs, done trying to be quiet and not wake up the neighbors that weren't awake yet.

Even from down the hallway he could hear his phone ringing. This pissed him off even more, as he hurried to unlock his door. He slammed the door shut and ran over to the kitchen counter which was where he kept the base of his phone. Unfortunately the phone was not on the base, and apparently he did not turn the answering machine on before he left earlier. The phone continued to ring as he raced towards the sound. He found the phone in the laundry basket, buried under dirty laundry. He did not remember clearly putting it there earlier.

"Chang, what the hell do you want?" Duo yelled into the phone.

"Aww, darling, you have the wrong person." It was Dorothy at the other end of the line. Duo swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "And why did it take you so long to answer the phone? I had to let it ring for at least three minutes."

"Besides the fact that it is about six in the morning, and I had might have been asleep, what is your major malfunction of calling me at this ungodly hour?" Duo snapped.

"Tsk, tsk. Now that is that really the way you want to talk to me?"

"I'm going to talk to you any damn way I well please. Now please tell me what you want, I haven't been to bed yet and I still have to take a shower."

"I had heard that you were going to a crime scene. I'm surprised that it took so long." There was a short pause and he could hear her breathing. He didn't know quite what to say to her and really didn't want to start another fight. They were always at each other's throats, it's why they had not lasted very long.

"So, how did it go?" she prodded. Duo shook his head in annoyance and then realized that she couldn't see him on this end of the phone.

"It is a long story that I do not feel like repeating. What is the real reason that you called me?"

"Fine, don't spill the beans. I'll just have to ask Zechs." Duo never understood how the woman knew so much so fast. She wasn't that strong of an empath. She was more of a hearth witch with slight, very slight, empathic abilities. With a sigh, she continued.

"I convinced the head of my department to let you go through some of the evidence from a crime scene about a week ago. Since you are working with Chang, it wasn't hard to convince them." Duo thought about this for a moment and then posed his question.

"Are you looking for a null, or just another set of eyes?"

"What do you mean? Of course we are looking for a null." She sounded a bit exasperated and a bit peeved as if how dare he ask her such a question.

"Sorry to burst your little bubble, but I'm not a null." He waited a moment for the oncoming outburst and sure enough, she rose to the task.

"What the hell do you mean you are not a null? Why are you pulling this shit. You have been trying for months to get into my department, our relationship notwithstanding. I go out on a limb for you and now you say that you are not a null? What the hell!" She stopped for a moment to actually breath and that was when Duo interrupted her tirade before she could go on.

"Look here missy. It has been a very very long night that has not been any amount of fun. Get over yourself. If you want to know, talk to Zechs. He's the one that is calling me a chimeric."

"A what? A chimeric? Oh what the hell have you gotten yourself into now Duo Maxwell?"

"Good night to you too sweety. And don't try calling me back, I'm unplugging the phone now." Duo had walked back into the kitchen as he talked and pulled the cord out of the wall, listening to Dorothy rant through the phone line.

He kicked off his shoes and tossed them into the corner. His socks stuck to his feet with more blood and he threw them immediately into the trash can. Next came his pants and they followed the socks into the trash. He was down to his boxers, which only had splotches of blood on them and he figured they could be saved with a thorough washing.

On the way to the bathroom he passed the laundry room. He tossed in his boxers into the machine. He got the basket of dirty laundry out of the hallway and threw them in also. A little bit of bleach and the turning of the knob, and the laundry was started.

He stretched out his sore muscles in the bathroom while he ran the water to get the shower hot. He was about to step into the shower when there was a loud knock on his front door. He had no idea who it could be, but he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist as he went to see who it was. He looked out the peephole and was surprised to see the landlord standing out in the hallway in front of his door. Standing beside him was the brown-haired stranger.

"Great, just great," Duo muttered and pulled his door open a couple of inches and tried to keep as much of his body as he could behind the door.

"Duo, I'm sorry to bother you at such an early hour of the morning, but Heero here has brought it to my attention that I should see to you right away."

"I see," Duo drawled. The landlord was a short, round little man with beady eyes behind coke bottle glasses. He was mostly bald, but tried to hide it as much as possible with a very bad comb over.

"Would you mind stepping out into the hall so that we can all sort this out?" the land lord asked, his voice rising in pitch. He was a null that was never comfortable around those that he knew held magic, and Heero had to of made it very clear that he was a magic user.

"See here, I cannot do that. All I'm wearing is a towel, I'm covered in blood, and I have water running for a much needed shower." At the mention of blood, the poor guy paled even further. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and wiped away the sweat that had formed along his brow. Heero, on the other hand, did not seem to be fazed in the slightest.

"Well, you see, um-" the poor man stuttered. Duo rolled his eyes and glared at the stranger that had the audacity to do such a thing as calling the landlord to his apartment.

"You want to know about the blood? Well, I was at a crime scene that went badly. That is all. Now, if you don't mind, let me get my shower so that I can get into my bed. I really want to go to sleep right now, not sit here and argue over the merits of being covered with blood." Duo wanted to slam the door in their faces, but he really did not want to be kicked out over something he sees as trivial.

"I'm very sorry to hear that," the landlord stuttered out. "I think we can leave you to your shower. Mr. Yuy, are you satisfied now? I told you that Duo would have a very good reason for you to see such a thing." Heero returned Duo's glare.

"It is fine, now," the man said. His voice had a rich sound with just the slightest bit of an accent.

"Fine. Good night to the both of you," Duo said dryly and shut his door with some force. He let his forehead hit the door frame and just stood there for a bit, trying to calm his nerves from getting so pissed.

He went back to his bathroom and hung the towel up on a hook near the shower. The water was piping hot, just the way he wanted and needed it at the moment. He quickly washed his body from head to toe. He took out his braid before dunking his head beneath the hot spray. He had to wash his hair twice to get as much gunk out of it as possible.

When he was done, he dried off quickly and jumped into bed, sliding between the sheets. The sun was up and he was just now trying to fall asleep. The day had been entirely way to long. He hoped that he would not dream, just sleep. Dreams were not welcomed this time. He sighed and closed his eyes, falling right to sleep within moments.


	6. Chapter 6

Crossroads Chapter 6

Note: Zoya Arianna was born Friday night. Mommy and baby are healthy, although still tired.

Note: Thank you once again for reviewing, or choosing to follow my story. It helps me to continue. :D

Duo was deeply asleep when a loud pounding on his front door woke him up. He sat up, grumbled to himself, and looked down at himself. He was still naked from taking a shower earlier that morning when he got home. He had forgotten to put his hair back into a braid, and it definitely looked as if he was going to regret it as soon as he got his ass out of bed.

"Hold your damn horses!" he yelled to whoever was a big enough of an idiot to interrupt his much needed sleep. He kicked some clothes around on his floor, trying to find at least a pair of boxers to put on. After a moment he was successful, finding a pair of black silk boxers. He lifted them up to his face and breathed in. They smelled clean enough as he then hurried to put them on. He grabbed a hair tie and roughly put the massive amount of hair back into a sloppy ponytail.

He stomped through his apartment to his front door. He looked through the small peephole and was not altogether surprised that Wufei was standing on the other side of his door getting ready to do another round of pounding. At least the man was smart enough to bring coffee with him.

"What do you want, Chang?" Duo asked as he unlocked and opened his door.

"Why is your phone still unhooked?"

"Because I was still sleeping?" Duo snarked.

"I thought you were going to be up earlier than this. I did you a favor and didn't even come here until three. What the hell are you still sleeping for?" Wufei asked as he came into the apartment without being invited in. He made his way over to the small kitchen island and set the two cups of coffee onto it.

"Apparently I'm just not as perky as you are on so little sleep. What have you been doing today? Did you even sleep?"

"Yes, I have slept, just not much." Wufei paused so he could take the lid off his coffee cup and take a big swallow.

"Wow, you are even drinking coffee. At three in the afternoon, no less," Duo said mildly. He grabbed the second cup, without being offered, and drank half the cup in one go.

"Oh, just sit down and shut up. I've been running around all over the place and trying to convince the head of the department that you didn't actually screw up the crime scene last night. He's not entirely convinced that you are a chimeric, so you will have to go in and see him today." Wufei looked down at his wrist watch. "Let's make that in one hour to just get it over with."

"What does he want with me?" Duo asked, deciding to blow on his coffee instead of burning his mouth even more.

"Not sure. I know he wants to talk to you at the very least. It is not every day that somebody is claiming to be a chimeric."

"I'm not claiming shit," Duo said vehemently. "You guys are the ones that keep telling me that I feel weird, that I hold magic differently than you. I had nothing to do with this."

Wufei waved his hand to try to placate his friend without much success. "I'm hoping that he has more of an idea what is going on than we do."

"About the case or about me supposedly being a chimeric?"

"Hopefully both." They were interrupted by a shrill ringtone that sounded entirely way to loud for Duo's small apartment. Wufei dug out his cellphone from his back pocket and answered it. "Chang here."

Duo couldn't hear what was being said, but it looked to be important as Wufei's face became very serious. "Understood." Wufei hung up the phone and looked Duo up and down in a cursory glance.

"Go get dressed, do something with that rat's nest you call hair. We have to go."

"What is it this time?" Duo asked, still sipping on his own coffee. He already felt better from the rush of caffeine.

"There is another crime scene. Apparently, the killer didn't stop at just one house last night. Another house has been found with much of the same setup." Duo swore under his breath.

"And I'm supposed to go again?"

"You were specifically asked for this time," Wufei told him with a raised eyebrow. Duo seemed uncomfortable with this chain of events. "What is your problem? I just said we have a crime scene to get to. Go get dressed."

"Fine, fine," Duo grumbled, heading to his bedroom and not really hurrying. He did not want to go to another crime scene so soon, but if he was specifically asked for, he had to make an appearance. Wufei was right, the night before. He was the one that had been trying to squeeze his way onto the police force.

Most of his clothing was dirty since he had fallen behind with his laundry, so he had to scramble to find something at least halfway clean. A pair of jeans thrown over his desk chair off in the corner seemed clean enough. A pair of socks were found in his dresser and a large t-shirt was found on his closet floor. He went to the bathroom to get his hair wet. It was so tangled that he needed to get it wet and apply conditioner to it. His hair took him the longest and he finally met a very disgruntled Wufei in the living room.

"All I need is a clean pair of shoes," he told the other man. His head was halfway into a front closet, and Wufei could barely understand him. He huffed and sighed as he waited for Duo to finish getting dressed. Duo backed out of the closet with what looked like to be a very old pair of shoes. He threw them on and grabbed his keys from the counter. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and threw away the disposable cup. He looked up at Wufei expectantly.

"What now?" Duo asked, slightly exasperated.

"Do you have your sigils?" the Chinese man asked.

"Yeah… let me grab another pair." He ran back into his bedroom and grabbed a clean pair of sigils from his top dresser drawer. He added them to his key ring and grabbed a light jacket from his closet, just in case something odd were to happen again. Odd… now that was one way to put it.

He followed Wufei out the door, locked it, and turned to go down the stairs. "If I am no longer a null, will I need my sigils now?"

"I would hang onto them for the time being. They shouldn't hinder you in any way, and until you get a stronger hold on the magic that you possess, they should be able to aid you in the way they always have."

"Makes sense," Duo said while pulling out a cigarette from the spare pack he kept in his jacket.

"Do you have to smoke right now?" Wufei asked, disgusted with the habit. Duo turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised, sighing.

"Fine, but when we get there, I'm definitely going to need a smoke."

"I don't understand why you have such a nasty habit anyways."

"And I don't understand how you keep such a parade of women, but I don't sit here and chastise you over it."

"Point taken," Wufei told him. "Just please do not smoke in my car. The smell of it would take forever to get out."

"Fine with me," Duo said, putting the cigarette back into the package and putting that back into his coat pocket.

As they walked down the hallway to get to the stairs, a door up ahead opened and out walked Heero. Duo groaned inwardly and really hoped that Wufei wouldn't ask any questions about there being somebody new in the building. He should have known better.

"So, who's the new guy?" Wufei stage whispered.

"Don't ask. He's an annoying jerk that doesn't know how to mind his own business," Duo practically snarled. It was just his luck that once Heero shut his door it looked like he was waiting for them to pass by him before heading towards the stairwell himself.

"Afternoon Duo," Heero said flatly.

"Hn," was Duo's answer as he grabbed Wufei's arm to make the other man walk faster. Wufei looked like he wanted to know what was up with Duo's poor attitude, but figured that his friend would have some sort of explanation.

"So, what was up with that?" Wufei asked once they were outside and heading for the car. Duo looked even grumpier if it was possible.

"He called the super on me this morning. Apparently he didn't like me coming into the building covered in blood."

"Ah. I see now." Wufei shrugged his shoulders and unlocked his car so that they could climb in. "I would have probably done the same thing."

"You are not helping the situation," Duo snapped.

"Fine. Shut up and get in." Duo got into his seat without another word as Wufei started the car. Soon, they were pulling out of the apartment complex and it looked like they were headed towards the highway.

The silence between them was calm and comfortable. They had known each other for several years. Wufei even knew about Quatre, about how he and Duo were really close friends until the subject of magic got broached. Wufei, while a pretty strong witch himself, was sympathetic to what happened between the two friends. He was very aware how magic users have basically taken over the most jobs throughout the country as they came out of the proverbial closet.

Wufei started to slow down as he came upon the 7th street exit. At the stop sign, Wufei turned right. If Duo remembered correctly, they were headed towards the outskirts of town. He wanted to ask where they were going, but figured that he would find out soon enough anyways. There was a right turn, then a left, and Duo could see the gathering of cop cars right up ahead.

"Is it just me, or are there more cops here this time than there were last night?" Duo asked as he rubbed his still sleep-felt eyes.

"I think the staties are getting involved. I was not invited to the first crime scene. This will be the third that I know of. The city cops believe that there is a pattern if we could find out what it is. Also, I think the first killing was quite a bit out in the country side, causing the staties wanting to get involved."

"That would explain it. Oh looky," Duo said pointing to a group of police that stood off to the corner of the yard. "Zechs is already here."

"Don't go starting something, Duo. His magic would squish you," Wufei said with a chuckle.

"Squish away, baby," he crowed. He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car while Wufei tried to find them their crime scene badges. Unlike Wufei's, Duo's badge was just a laminated visitor's badge. But hey, it seemed to work.

A couple of the policemen called out to Duo as he came through the front gate and started to head for the front door. He had only been on one official crime scene and of course they would remember him as the guy with the braid who had almost died because of magic. There were a lot of whispering and a lot of laughs that he felt for sure that they were making fun of him.

Wufei called for him to wait up, which he complied, but it gave Zechs enough time to come over to stand in front of Duo. Zechs looked him up and down, and it made him feel like he was a prized pig that was about to be sold at an auction.

"So, are you going to pass out at my crime scene today, Duo?" There was an emphasis on the "my" part of that question. It made Duo wonder exactly where Zechs stood in the hierarchy of things among the policemen and the state troopers that filled up most of the front lawn.

"Look here, Zechs," Duo started. He wanted to come back with a flippant remark, but he caught Wufei glaring at him and decided differently. "Look, I'm just here because Wufei came and picked me up."

"If you are going to pass out today, make sure you don't fall in the blood," Zechs snarked and then backed away to go talk to somebody else when he got a full-force glare from Wufei.

"I told you to make nice today," Wufei barked at him.

"Prissy pants over there started it first."

"Oh, just listen to yourself. How old are you? Five?" Wufei said with a snort. "Let's get inside and get this over with." Duo nodded and followed Wufei's lead. The first thing they had to do was find out exactly where Zechs had gone, which he figured wouldn't take long.

They went through the cherry wood front door and stepped into the living room. Duo couldn't help not letting his jaw drop. Everything that he could see from the doorway was done in crystal or white, and not just any type of white, but a sparkling white.

The floors were a white marble with a silver swirling pattern that sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight. The furniture in the living room was made of white wood and leather. The center table was held up by white columns and for the top, it was made of clear crystal that also sparkled. The pictures on the walls were surrounded by white frames. Even the big-screen T.V. in the corner had a custom made white border.

The walls looked as if at one time to have been a pristine white. That would have been before today. Now, there were sprays of blood in great arcs across two of the four walls. When Duo took a closer look at the floor, he could see why nobody was congregating in the living room.

Bloody boot prints marked the floor in an uneven pattern. There was thick mucousy blood mixed with something darker that held some kind of shape. Duo's eyes saw what was in front of him, but his mind did not want to comprehend what was in front of him. He stood there, staring, and it just occurred to him that there were people off to the side of the room and in the kitchen throwing up.

Duo decided to get a closer look, not knowing if he was going to regret it just yet. Now that he was inside the house, he could feel a pressure building. It was different than what he had felt the night before. The pressure seemed to be coming from within him and not by any force within the room.

When he stepped closer to the boot prints, he made the mistake of taking a deep breath through his nose. He almost didn't make it to the trashcan between the living room and kitchen. He retched horribly and tried to keep his braid out of the mess that he was sure he was making.

The smell was that of an outhouse and he knew what the darker chunks were on the floor. It took a bit of time to convince himself that what he was saying was actually there. Those bits and pieces that looked brown and black among a red mucous were bits of intestines. He wasn't sure how they came to be strewn across the living room floor. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to know how this happened.

"At least you made it to the trash can?" Zechs said softly, standing next to Duo. He waited patiently for the younger man to finish. There were no snide remarks now, only an understanding silence between the two of them.

"What happened here?" Duo asked. He had sat down on the floor and put his head between his knees to try to keep the rest of whatever was in his stomach in there. "Wait, where's the body?" He brought his head up too fast and almost threw up again as he tried to make eye contact with Zechs.

"Take it easy," Zechs said gently. He made the motion of reaching out to rub Duo's back, but thought twice about it. It didn't help that Duo was glaring at him either. "The body, or what is left of it, is down the hall that breaks off from the living room."

Now that Duo could raise his head without being sick, he could see the beginning of the hallway from where he sat. He stood up and started to make his way over to the hallway when Zechs held up a hand to stop him.

"It gets worse than what you see in here," Zechs told him. Duo nodded, glanced at where Wufei was standing, and turned to make his way over to the hallway. He was careful to avoid the boot prints and the bits of human flesh. He made it to the entrance of the hallway before the room began to swim again.

Zechs was not exaggerating when he said it was worse the further you got into the house. Duo had to look up, look at anything but what was in the hallway. He forced himself to breathe carefully through his mouth and out through his nose. The stench of spilled guts was still a new smell for him and he could barely keep himself from throwing up again.

When he thought he could handle it, he got closer to what seemed like just a lump of red meat sitting in the middle of the hallway. It hardly looked like it could have been a human before earlier this morning. But, there is was, a human corpse.

The stomach had been carved out, as if the person, not a he or she, but almost like an it, had been stabbed as they were running. Running from what? Something vital had been punctured out in the living room. Hell, more than punctured, unless… Duo looked closer and then looked back to where he had walked through.

"It looks as if it was stabbed in the living room, and it tried to make a run for the back of the house. Is there an exit back there?" Duo asked, pointing towards the end of the hallway.

"Yeah, there is a patio door leading off the master bedroom," Wufei answered him with a grim look on his face.

"Well, they made it to the hallway." Duo looked down, searching for the head of the person that lay there. He swallowed hard, realizing that the bloody lump above the shoulders must have been the head. Duo stared at the ceiling, slowly breathing in and out until he got control once again.

"They made it into the hallway and then were repeatedly bludgeoned upside their head." He saw spray patterns on both of the walls down in the hallway too. "But, correct me if I'm wrong here, it seems as if their stomach was carved out and strung along the hallway back into the front room." Wufei nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I think so too," Wufei stated. He had been to several crime scenes, but this was by far one of the worst. "Do you see any signs of craft?"

"I feel pressure, but nothing that I can physically see," answered Duo.

"Well, then you will just have to look harder," came a voice that Duo was just beginning to recognize. He turned around, and sure enough, there stood Heero.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Duo snarled in the man's general direction.

"Looking over my crime scene." Once again, there was great emphasis on the word "my". Duo noticed that when Heero spoke, Zechs glared, and Wufei was trying not to smile.

"Well, shit," Duo so aptly put it.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Crossroads

Note: updates will probably be about once a week since between a new baby and accelerated classes that leaves very little personal time.

Note: Thank you to all of you that have reviewed and decided to follow this story. It really does help to keep the juices flowing. :D

Note: also, if the formatting stays as I want it _this_ means voices.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Duo snarled in the man's general direction.

"Looking over my crime scene." Once again, there was great emphasis on the word "my". Duo noticed that when Heero spoke, Zechs glared, and Wufei was trying not to smile.

"Well, shit," Duo so aptly put it. "And what do you mean, look again?"

"Get closer to where the crime originated. You should see signs there." Heero waved his hand towards the center of the room. Duo swallowed hard and slowly walked over towards the sofa, where it looked like the original blood pattern seemed to have started.

As he walked closer, the pressure grew. _Ssssss Ssssss. _Duo shook his head to clear his mind. It was like a high pitched sound mixing with a low moan. He glanced around the room and it didn't look as if anybody else had heard anything.

_Inssspectorrrrr._

"What did you say?" Duo asked, glancing back at where Heero stood. Heero gave him a funny look.

"Nobody said anything."

"Duo, do you feel anything differently from where you are standing?" Wufei asked, unable to keep a chill from crawling down his spine.

"I don't see any of you walking any closer to this shit," Duo exclaimed. "Why the hell am I the only one over here?"

"Zechs made it clear that your expertise was required," Heero drawled out sarcastically.

"What damn expertise," Duo muttered under his breath as he turned back around.

"What was that?" Heero asked sternly. One could tell that he was on the edge of getting pissed.

"Nothing," Duo muttered, a bit louder this time.

"While you are saying nothing, what can you tell me about what you see over there?"

"They were sitting here, but why would they just sit here when somebody came through the front door," Duo said aloud as he was trying to talk his way through the process. "Did they- no they did not know the person that came through the door."

Duo placed his hands out in front of him and ran his hand over the top of the couch, inches from the fabric. "They were spelled to not have felt the intruder's presence."

_Inssspectorrrr. Ssssss Ssssss._

Duo hurriedly looked around the room. The only ones that were paying any attention to what he was doing were Wufei, Zechs, and Heero. The rest of the cops paid him no mind. He brought up his hands to rub at his eyes.

Inches from his face he saw that his hands were dripping with blood. He jumped backwards with a yell. Wufei rushed forward and grabbed Duo by the shoulders and turned him around quickly.

"What? What did you feel?" Wufei asked, surprised at such a harsh reaction. Duo frantically rubbed his hands on his pants, trying to get the blood off. When he looked to Wufei and back to his hands, there was nothing there.

"I, uhm, I-" Oh what the hell was he supposed to say to that. "I- nothing. I didn't feel anything. It's nothing," Duo told him, trying to reassure him and himself. Wufei looked at him funny, but took a step back to stand near Heero and Zechs. Duo walked away from the couch and over towards the hallway. He had a hard time not stepping in the blood and gore, but he carefully managed so that nobody would get on his case about disturbing the crime scene.

_Ssssss. Ssssss._

He wondered what in the world that noise was. He tried to push it out of his mind as he got closer to the corpse. What looked like random blood spatters, were actually made into a pattern that he did not see at first.

"Do you guys see this?" Duo called back to the people he really wished would stay closer to him. Luck would have it that Heero came to stand beside him.

"The spray forms a pattern. It is not neatly done, but I can see it too," Heero stated.

Duo leaned over a particular part of the pattern and lost his footing. He reached out to grab the nearest doorjamb to save himself from falling into the untouched blood. He caught his balance, but hissed as he brought his hand away from the door frame. A large splinter had gouged (1) the middle of his palm. He pulled it out and blood welled up in the hole that the splinter had made.

"Let me see," Heero said sternly.

"It is nothing," Duo told him, shaking his hand to ease the pain. For some reason, the drop of blood that got flung off his hand caught their attention and what happened next seemed to go in slow motion.

That one drop of blood arced through the air to land on the center of the corpse that laid there in the hallway. Zechs and Wufei screamed, Heero's mouth dropped open as he made a grab for Duo, and Duo stood there looking dumbfounded. The drop landed with a small little splat. Nothing happened for a moment, and then all Hell broke loose.

The body shot up in flames, creating a back blast that threw Heero back towards the kitchen with its immense heat. The flames and heat seemed to part around Duo as he just stood there.

_Inspector, how nice of you to join your blood with ours. _Duo looked around frantically, but he could have sworn the voice was coming from the corpse in front of him. Through the flames that he could not feel, it looked like the body was slowly reforming.

The blood that was on the walls oozed down to the floor. The puddles along the hallway coagulated into one puddle, then began a scooting or crawling motion to enter the corpse's stomach. There was a roaring in Duo's ears, his eyes were wide, his body frozen and unable to move away from the sight in front of him.

_Blood of your blood, our blood, HIS blood. Little child of mine. _Duo found that he could move his head as he realized that it had been moving back and forth. Somebody, he realized with a start that it was him, was saying the word no in increasing volume. What the hell was this thing talking about, and is it moving!?

The body that lay in front of him was slowly becoming whole right before his eyes. Some small part of his brain made him want to turn around and see if anybody else was seeing what he was seeing, hearing what he was hearing, but he was too terrified of taking his eyes off the now standing corpse that was still on fire.

Nothing around the corpse caught fire. Duo thought this was a little strange, but couldn't see what he could do about it at the time being. The walls and the carpet were clean of most of the blood, leaving behind only the minutest traces behind. The fire danced along the corpse, fueled by something that he could not see.

The thing took a step towards Duo and lifted its arm so that the palm of its hand was outstretched towards him. Duo scrambled back, not going very far as the wall was right behind him. In the distance, he thought he heard somebody call his name. But, he couldn't hear much through the roaring in his ears.

_Little child. Our child_. The thing – he couldn't think of it as a body anymore – took one step closer to him and laid his hand on Duo's chest. Duo screamed as the heat instantly soaked through his shirt in a searing pain. A dreadful stench of burnt flesh filled his nose as his screams escalated.

Suddenly there were gunshots bursting through the air and bolts of energy sizzling, shining brightly, and blinding Duo as the thing in front of him was hit repeatedly. The roaring that filled his ears seemed to have vanished in a sudden motion. The thing in front of him did not seem to be fazed in the slightest as it held its palm to his chest, marking him.

_We will return for you._

Without warning the thing screeched, maybe something vital was finally hit. Whatever it was, the thing reared back its head, let out a horrid screech, ripped its hand away from Duo's chest and disintegrated before their eyes.

"What the hell?" Heero yelled, just off to Duo's right. All that was left were the small traces of what used to be blood and dark ashes floating through the air to land on the hallway floor.

Duo, for his part was still screaming. Wufei ran over to him and pushed Heero to the side to get to his friend.

"Duo. Duo!" With no response Wufei grabbed Duo by his wrists and pulled him over to the kitchen where a medic was fast coming through the door. He sat Duo down on the floor. Between him and the medic, they were able to cut away most of Duo's shirt without pulling the skin off. Duo's screams, by this point had lessened to a wheezing whine.

The skin on Duo chest was blackened and peeling already. The medic looked worried as she pulled out some forceps with a swab of something smelling strongly of disinfectant. She waved Wufei back from Duo's wound and lightly soaked the charred skin. She frowned as she realized that the black bits of dead skin came off right away. She gasped by what she saw underneath.

The wound was sealed with baby pink scar tissue. There was a perfect print of a hand with the five fingers outstretched, all in that baby-pink color. She glanced over to Wufei as if she could not believe what she was seeing, but by his expression she wasn't just seeing things.

"How am I supposed to explain this?" she asked quietly. Duo glanced down and said a few choice words about the matter.

"Calm down Duo," Wufei consoled. He took the scraps of cloth that used to be Duo's shirt and threw them into the nearest trash bag that was meant for discarded gloves and shoe booties.

"What the hell do you mean, calm down Wufei? That thing, that corpse, did something to me. Did this! And you want me to be calm?"

"I'm sorry that we couldn't stop it sooner," Wufei replied.

"Who was throwing the energy blasts?" Duo asked. "I've actually never seen them used so aggressively before."

"That would be Zechs. I told you that he is rather strong, magic wise."

"I guess you can say that." There was a pause while the medic finished cleaning off the black pieces of dead skin off his chest. The cool air felt weird on his chest, but he wasn't sure what he could really do about it at the moment. "Did you guys hear anything coming from the corpse?"

"What do you mean?" Heero asked, walking up to where they were sitting on the floor.

"Keep your chest uncovered for the rest of the day," the medic told him softly. "If it starts to feel weird, as in hot, cold, or anything else, get yourself to the emergency room as fast as possible."

"Alright. Thank you doc," Duo told her and was interrupted as Heero repeated himself. "It was talking about my blood with its blood. It called me a child and said that somebody would be coming back for me."

"After the backlash, I didn't hear anything but the sound of something burning up. I definitely did not expect the thing to reform itself." Duo looked over to Wufei for confirmation, the Chinese man nodded in agreement.

"Who was shooting at the damn thing?" Duo asked. Heero looked indignant while Wufei had the decency of looking chagrined.

"Well, what did you expect us to do?"

"Not take your sweet ass time if such a thing were to happen again!" Duo said loudly. He stood up, much to Wufei's disappointment, and shoved himself away from the wall. "I can't believe you guys were letting that thing crispy critter me before doing anything!" Duo felt rather indignant about that part of the situation.

"Don't you remember us yelling your name?" Wufei asked him, following Duo as he went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"What do you mean?" he asked, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and searching for his lighter in one of the many other pockets his pants had to have.

"As soon as that drop of blood landed on the corpse and it went up into flames, I started yelling for you to get back out of the way." Wufei looked his friend up and down, almost like if he was seeing the other man for the first time.

"Why didn't the flames send you back towards the kitchen like they did Heero?"

"I have no idea," Duo told him after releasing an impressive amount of smoke rings.

"You know those things are going to kill you someday, right?" Duo arched an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. "Can you explain anything that happened back in there?"

"Nope. Same as last time. I have no idea why things are reacting to me like they are. Never happened before," Duo replied.

"I think it is because you are a chimeric," Zechs literally chirped as he walked up to their secluded little corner of the yard.

"What the hell ever," Duo replied, taking another long drag on his cigarette to finish that one off. He scraped the embers on the bottom of his shoe and threw the butt over the fence.

"Does he always talk with such language?" Zechs asked Wufei.

"Just about," the Chinese man replied.

"Can we go back inside to talk things over with Heero?" Zechs asked politely, given the situation.

All of a sudden, the sun was almost blocked completely by an overwhelming shadow. Each man glanced up to the sky and was surprised that a large portion of the sky was covered in black birds. They were swooping and pecking and diving. It looked rather unusual.

Duo was about to suggest that of course they could go inside so they wouldn't get pooped on, but then something fell out of the sky and landed with a wet plop at Duo's feet. He bent over to look at what had fallen and was almost sick to his stomach for the second time that day.

It was an eyeball. It was too small to be human, but too large to have been a bird's eye. It still had bloody tendons attached to the back of it and almost seemed to pulse with life.

"What the-" Wufei started to say. Suddenly something else fell nearby. From what they could tell it was another part of an animal's anatomy. A tongue, maybe. Suddenly, there were things falling out of the sky two, three pieces at a time, and all the while falling in a circle around Duo as if they were an offering of some sort.

Duo was disgusted and quite unnerved by the whole situation. He tilted his head upwards towards the sky and had the very misfortune of something red, wet, and slimy land on his forehead. He let out an undignified squawk, and clawed at his face to get it off and then started running for the front door to go inside the house.

The droppings followed him. To keep the birds from following him into the house, he had to slam the door shut, almost shutting Zechs in the door in the process. The three of them were panting heavily as they watched the birds dive bomb the door and the windows at the front of the house.

Heero came to see what all the commotion was, and was surprised to see the mark on Duo's chest. He was even more surprised by the birds' behavior. He turned to Duo with a look of almost horror on his face.

"Just what the hell are you?" Heero so aptly asked.

Yes, splinters can gouge. I got a bad enough one in grade school that I had to get stitches.

Note: Thank you for your patience in waiting for the next chapter to come out. The baby needs fed every three hours really gets to us sometimes and then I had major writer's block. I hope to have the next installment out a lot sooner.


	8. Chapter 8

Woohoo! Another chapter in the making with a big 'ol blister on my finger. Yes, I'm pimping the sympathy card. I was spinning my practice poi and rubbed my fingers raw.

By the way peeps, I'm looking for a partner (over 21) to go to this year's NanoWrimo Write-a-thon. If anybody is interested, let me know.

Note: dkAdeena, thank you so much for consistently reviewing. Also, I love how you asked about Quatre. I'm very excited about his part in the story. Just haven't gotten there yet. :D

Chapter 8 Crossroads

"Just what the hell are you?" Heero so aptly asked.

"He's a Chimeric," Wufei spat out and shoved the guy back from Duo who still was trying to come to terms with what was happening outside. Even with the front door shut, they could still hear the squawking of the birds and little thumps as more bits and pieces fell against the side of the house and onto the glass of the windows.

"Well excuse me for being a mere mortal," Heero returned. He looked a bit like a peacock with his chest all puffed out. "This is still a crime scene. I expect you two to start acting like it is."

"Excuse me?" Duo said in a breathless voice. His chest still ached and his hands were a bit shaky. As he turned to Heero, his eyes were still wide, the pupils dilated. This is not what he was ever taught as to what to expect from a crime scene.

"I said-"

"I know what you said. Who the hell do you think you are?" Duo was angry now, beyond how angry he would have been if the circumstances had been normal. "Did you not see what has been happening?" Heero looked rather indignant at that comment, but declined to speak at the moment.

"I was told to come here – not even asked. I get here and by some needle in a haystack chance, I somehow cause the corpse to catch fire. The thing speaks to me! Did you hear it? NO! You were too busy pulling your thumb out your ass while it burned the shit out of me. Then, to top things off these birds, birds! Mind you, are flinging carcass pieces at me and now the house.

"So, can you tell me, Mr. Yuy, how the hell am I supposed to continue to act like this is just another regular crime scene?" Duo was panting by the end of his tirade and his cheeks were flushed red. He didn't realize at first, but he had slowly backed Heero back against the wall.

There was a hand placed on his shoulder, and Duo spun around swinging. It was a good thing that Wufei had half expected something of the sort to happen as he caught Duo's fist in the palm of his own hand.

"Enough, Duo. I think he has had enough. Let's go sit down at the table over there in the kitchen and take another look at that burn. Let the police handle what is going outside," Wufei said, giving a stern look at Heero to remind him that something had to be done about all the grisly pieces outside. Heero just glared right back at him, but he did motion for another officer to come towards him.

Duo sat down heavily in one of the white kitchen chairs. The open floor plan allowed him to see everything and everyone that remained inside. Nobody was supposedly still in the back rooms. Duo threw one look to Wufei and then rested his head on his crossed arms that were on the table.

"What was that?" Wufei asked after he heard Duo mutter something.

"I said, Heero sure knows how to get somebody riled up, doesn't he?"

"Well, he does seem to get on people's nerves a lot," Wufei agreed.

"Wait, you know him? From before today?" Duo asked, angrily. His head shot up from his arms.

"Yes." Wufei stated succinctly. Duo waited for him to elaborate, but the other man seemed to have no intention in doing so.

"Spill the beans, Wufei. Why didn't you say anything earlier, back at my apartment?"

"I knew you'd find out eventually, and in the middle of the hallway at your apartment building did not seem like the place to have that conversation."

"And on the way here?" Duo wanted to know.

"I did not want to tell you. That is that. Heero would eventually let it spill, so I'm surprised that you did not find out until just now."

"I've been kinda busy, ya know?" Duo said dryly.

"Yep." The braided man waited again for his friend to go on, but nothing seemed forthcoming. He sighed and let his head drop back onto his arms.

"Go away, Wufei." A moment later, Duo looked up and saw that the Chinese man really had left him sitting there, wallowing in his foul mood. A quick glance around the living room and Duo could see Wufei talking to a small group of officers standing off in the far corner of the living room.

Wufei seemed adamant about something, but what, Duo could not tell. Just as he was about to rest his head again, he could see Zechs coming his way. He cringed inwardly and plastered a fake smile on his face as the other man stepped up to the kitchen table.

"You have a minute?" Zechs asked in a surprising gentle voice.

"Sure, why not?"

"I just wanted to ask you a few questions." Zechs took a well-worn notebook from his back pocket and opened it up to a clean page.

"Can you explain, again, what exactly happened between you and the, uhm, corpse, Mr. Maxwell?"

"Would it be strange to say that it talked to me. I mean, I think it was talking to me before the fireworks even started." Zechs nodded for Duo to go on without saying anything. "Anyways, it kept calling me an inspector, and I guess that is what I am, here at the crime scene."

Zechs gave him a moment to gather his thoughts. "I jabbed my hand onto the molding, on the corner of the wall there at the end of the hallway. It was a rather large splinter, but I took it out and I was bleeding pretty good." Here, Duo looked down at his hand and one couldn't tell that he had had a small injury before now.

"Anyways, I shook my hand. You know, how most people do when they hurt themselves?" Duo posed it as a question, but didn't really expect a response this time. "And it was like everything slowed down, in slow motion. I could see the drops of blood from my hand fly in an arc to land on the body that was laying there in the hallway."

"It just caught fire. I couldn't move. It kept talking about my blood and somebody else's. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was like it was waiting for me to come over there. By the way, who requested that I be here?"

"I did," Zechs said calmly. After a moment he nodded for Duo to continue once more.

"I see. Well, uhm, it raised its hand and put it on my chest. I would have moved if I could have, but something was keeping me still. I could not do anything about it. I tried to scream and I couldn't. I tried to run, to put my hand up, anything." Duo had started saying the words faster and faster and now he was out of breath to the point of where he was almost wheezing again.

"It laid its palm on me. It burned so bad. I heard voices far away calling my name, but there was nothing but this roaring sound in my ears. I saw the thing being hit with bullets, and your magic, right?" Again Zechs nodded. "I don't think it was doing any good. It just stood there and then it said that they, whoever the hell they are, would come back for me." He was quiet for a moment.

"What about the birds? What do you know about them?"

"Nothing, really. Just all of a sudden they come out of nowhere dropping their little gifts," Duo tried to explain, flabbergasted. He was more upset about the birds than he was at the corpse until he looked down and saw the brand new palm print on his chest. Slowly, he lifted a hand to it. The skin was baby soft and smooth.

"Why did I heal like this?" Duo asked in a scared voice. The trembling had returned to his hands as he wasn't sure what to expect the answer to be.

"Well, it could be one of two things, Duo," Zechs started mildly. "One, you have healing powers since you are the chimeric. Two, that was the burning corpse's plan. To just leave you with a mark."

"Will it go away?" he asked, just as softly as before.

"I do not know the answer to that question. I am sorry." Zechs reached out and patted Duo's arm in sympathy, but Duo didn't want his pity or his sympathy, however well-meaning it was supposed to be. He glared at the other man until Zechs removed his hand awkwardly.

"I think that will be all for now," Zechs said uncomfortably. He stood up and walked away leaving Duo to stew in his own thoughts. Duo didn't know what to think. He could see through the windows that there were policemen outside the house picking up the remains. He wondered where they had come from.

Wufei finished up with whatever he was saying and walked over to Duo. He had a grim look on his face that Duo did not like one bit. With a sigh, he stood up and tried to stop the trembling in his hands.

"I still need you to go to the back of the house, to where the bedrooms are," Wufei told him calmly.

"Am I supposed to be going back there?"

"You are now," Wufei stated. He held out a hand so that Duo could lead the way.

"I would like it if somebody else took the lead for once," Duo told him, not budging and waiting for Wufei to go first.

"Fine." Wufei started towards the hallway, picking his way carefully through the debris that was left. At the end of the hallway, there were two doors, one to the left and one to the right. Wufei turned to the right and slowly opened the door. It was immediately apparent that there was another body in the room.

"Try not to bleed or touch the body this time," Wufei said dully. Duo gave a wan smile and stepped into the room. Duo gasped at the sight of the room. It looked like the body had exploded, literally. Something of extreme violence had taken place in the room.

"Wow," Duo couldn't help but to let out. He was careful not to breathe through his nose and took in shallow breaths through his mouth. He glanced over to Wufei and could tell that the other man was having trouble breathing as well, although he had been able to keep his face passive.

There was blood sprays throughout the entire room. What looked like to be the torso of the person murdered lay up against the bed, on the floor. There was a complete arm, ripped apart at the shoulder socket at the base of the wall at the head of the bed. Duo took a look closer and saw that there was a small ring on the pinky finger, a very female looking finger.

The other arm was stuck partway under the dresser that was at the foot of the bed. Blood pooled around the stump where the elbow would have been. The upper part of that arm was still attached, though barely, to the stump that sat on the floor a couple feet away. The legs, each in several pieces were the closest to the door.

Duo had to look twice more to try to find the head. It was sunken in the center of the bed as if it weighed much more than it did. Dark red blood pooled around the head with thin rivulets running over the edges of the bed dripping down into puddles on the floor. Even for Wufei it was one of the more grisly scenes that he had seen.

"So what am I supposed to be doing in here?" Duo asked, still standing just right inside the doorway.

"As before, check to see if you sense anything," was the answer he was given by Heero that had walked up behind them without being heard.

"It feels – empty. I don't know how else to describe it. Can't you guys do this, too?" Duo asked Wufei and Heero.

"First we needed a null," Wufei started. "Now we're asking you from the standpoint of chimeric."

"Right," Duo drawled out. He took a few footsteps into the room, carefully not touching the blood splatters. He still had just his shoes on, not any of those little crime scene footies that most of the policemen were wearing.

On the far side of the bed were the sliding glass doors. Bloody hand prints streaked down the surface, almost all the way to the floor. But, the sun was out, and shining brightly. It gave an uncanny sheen to the blood that was drying on the bed and the floor.

Duo took his set of sigils out of his pocket and held them up by the ring that they were on. The ring contained around twenty sigils, depending on which ring he decided to carry with him. This one was one of the largest.

He took his time as he flicked through them one by one, holding them out towards the center of room and then pointed at the torso. First, nothing happened. Then the whole ring of sigils bared a pale blue light and turned ice cold to the touch. With a shout, Duo dropped the ring onto the floor. It just happened to fall into a puddle of blood.

"Do not pick those up!" Heero shouted before Duo could so much as move an inch. "I do not want to know what will happen if you come into contact with another victim's blood." Duo sighed and turned back towards the other two who were still standing at the door.

"I thought I was going to wait for somebody else to come in here…" Duo muttered under his breath. He wondered what made his sigils act as such, but he was not sure if he was ready to find out the answer. Using his hand as a focus point, he held it out towards the center of the room. Still he felt nothing.

"There should be soul residue in the room. This victim was the product of a very violent crime. There should have remained at least something in the room. Even a trail of leaving such a scene should be able to show, but there is nothing," Duo tried to explain.

"I don't feel anything either," Heero stated. Wufei nodded in agreement. "Now that you mention it, it does feel a little strange."

"I think I know what it is," Zechs said, coming to stand up behind them, spooking even Duo.

"You guys really need to learn how to make some noise when you come into a room," Duo said dryly, not happy in the slightest. Wufei only rolled his eyes at Duo's comment.

"What do you think it is Zechs?" Wufei asked.

"If what Duo is saying is correct, then I think we have a soul eater on our hands. This won't be the last we see of it, I'm pretty sure of it," Zechs answered.

"That's a great attitude to take," Duo snorted. Heero glared at him and turned to Zechs.

"Why would you say that?" Heero was on the verge of taking offense to the tall man's words. It was, after all, his crime scene when it came down to it. He couldn't decide whether having Duo at the crime scenes were detrimental to the whole process, or if he just might be helping.

"It does very well in hiding its tracks and usually only lets people find it when they want to be found."

"What is a soul eater?" Duo had to ask since Zechs didn't seem to want to explain it further.

"They're beings that are less than human. Or rather, they start out as human and their magic twists them until they are no longer so."

"How do they become soul eaters?" Wufei asked, thoroughly disgusted with the idea.

"They can literally eat the souls of their victims to gain magical power." By this point Duo had come to stand next to those who stood in the doorway.

"But why the violence of such a crime like this? Is it really necessary to pull the body apart to," here Duo took and deep breath and swallowed hard. "Eat the soul of the person?"

"I have heard of soul eaters being able to take a person's soul without even touching them. What we see here is, to my knowledge, is unnecessary. They have to love the act of violence, of the blood, of the pure power they get to absorb."

They were all quiet for a moment, and then Duo had to break the silence with the next question that he had.

"Were there only the two people we found, or are there more victims that I have to look at?"

"As far as we know, these are the only two people that live in the house," Heero told him.

"At least something good can come out of this mess," Wufei muttered. He turned to Duo to tell him that he'd have to wait until he was done at the crime scene but they no longer needed him to look at the bodies.

"I could always take you home," piped up Heero.

"Huh?" Duo said dumbly. He definitely felt like the two of them had not gotten off to a great start.

"I have to head back to my apartment for a bit. I can take you with me," Heero repeated with a smirk.

"Fine, fine," Duo said as he threw up his hands in defeat and walked towards the front door. The birds had stopped in the time they were in the back room. Even the policemen were almost done out there in the yard.

Duo went and stood in the kitchen and pulled out a cigarette. He noticed that he only had two left and made a mental note of getting more later in the day. He pulled out one and lit it up. He no longer cared if he was allowed to smoke in the victim's house or not. It was not very long before Heero was coming up the hallway.

"Let's go," Heero snapped as he grabbed Duo's cigarette and ground it under his heal, right there on the kitchen floor. Duo was about to protest, but with a glare pointed his way, he felt that being quiet was the wise choice at the moment. He finally just shrugged his shoulders and followed the stoic man out to his car.


	9. Chapter 9

Note: The next couple chapters should be coming up quickly. I hope I'm doing the story justice, although I feel like the last chapter wasn't the greatest. I'll be trying to improve on that.

Note: Thank you again for all of you that have been following the story.

Crossroads Chapter 9

"Let's go," Heero snapped as he grabbed Duo's cigarette and ground it under his heal, right there on the kitchen floor. Duo was about to protest, but with a glare pointed his way, he felt that being quiet was the wise choice at the moment. He finally just shrugged his shoulders and followed the stoic man out to his car.

Once outside, Duo took a good look around the house. There were several policemen still combing the yard for bits and pieces that the crows had dropped. The crows themselves had vacated the grass, but had taken perch in the surrounding trees. They were quiet except for the occasional caw. The air was filled with a tension that filled Duo with trepidation.

"Chang!" Heero yelled to the man standing off to the side, overseeing the policemen's activities. When called, he came over to Heero and Duo who were now standing next to an oldish Buick.

"Yeah, Yuy," Wufei ground out.

"Take care of the media. Keep them as far back as possible." Duo looked down the street and sure enough it looked as if the media was coming en mass. Even from where he was standing, he could see at least three local channel vans headed their way.

"Fine," replied Wufei. He took a quick glance around the yard and it seemed as if most of the debris had been picked up. Although, the crows still blackened the nearby tree limbs.

Heero unlocked his car with the touch of a button and nodded for Duo to get into the car. Duo looked down at himself and realized that he was still topless. He raised an eyebrow at Heero who just shrugged and got into the driver's seat and started the car quickly. Duo followed suit, careful of the way he moved because the scorched skin still pulled a bit.

They were driving down the road, in silence, until Duo broke the silence. "What do you know of soul eaters?"

"Hn," was Heero's intelligent response.

"Is that an "I don't know" or "I know but I don't have to tell you"?" Duo retorted. He went to cross his arms across his chest and regretted it instantly.

"I want you off the case," Heero said calmly. He shot a glance over to the braid-haired man to gauge his reaction. He was surprised that Duo was just about speechless as he fought with himself on how to answer Heero.

"Why?"

"What is a soul eater? Huh? You don't even know!" Heero was practically shouting and he gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, but Duo looked as if he was going to yell right back.

"You don't even know what a chimeric is! How are you supposed to help now? You can't use your sigils effectively and you can't use the powers of being a chimeric either. Right now you are a liability that I don't want to deal with."

"Woah! Just hold on for one stinking minute," Duo started. He turned in his seat so that he could look at Heero directly. Heero looked at him and almost did not notice an upcoming red light. The brakes were hit hard and without wearing a seatbelt, Duo was thrown up against the dashboard.

"You didn't even buckle yourself in," Heero grumbled. The light turned green as Duo pushed himself back into the seat and buckled himself in this time.

"So sue me. Zechs thinks it is a good idea for me to be at the crime scenes," Duo pointed out.

"Zechs is an outright idiot," Heero shot back. Duo's jaw dropped a good couple of inches, and then shut it with an audible click.

"Okay, so no love lost between the two of you," Duo stated. "What is with you two, then?"

"He thinks just because he can control earth matter and has lived for the past two hundred years, he's invulnerable and knows everything," Heero spat out.

"Two hundred?!" gasped Duo. "What the hell is with you people?"

"Magic. That is what does it." Duo wasn't sure, but he thought that Heero sounded a bit wistful.

"And what about you, Heero? What's your story and how come you are in charge of the crime scenes now?" Duo asked as he rested his elbow on the car door by the window and put his chin on his hand. Traffic was heavy within the city and it was going to take them a bit to get back to the apartment complex.

"I shouldn't have to explain myself to the likes of you," Heero growled out.

"You're not earning any favor points with me here," drawled Duo. "Just explain away if you so choose. We have plenty of time before getting home."

"Hn," was the only answer Heero gave. He focused on the car in front of him and didn't bother to glance at the other man anymore. It took them a good half hour before they pulled into the parking lot. Heero chose a space close to their entrance and then turned off the car. For a moment, he just sat there, but then he turned towards Duo with a determined look on his face.

"Since I want you off this case, I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, but, I am an agent of a special group from within the FBI. This case was brought to my attention because there have been others like it, just not in this area.

"We have known that it was a soul eater for a while, but we did not make it well known. Zechs, on the other hand, really doesn't care who knows, and for that, we're going to be sorry. The media is just going to eat it up as if it were a very good dessert.

"Like I stated earlier, I want you away from the crime scenes. This is my case now," Heero ended firmly. Duo sat back in his seat, not knowing what to say. Of course he wanted to stay, but he really had no jurisdiction or right to be there. He was a trainee, nothing more.

"So, how many have there been?"

"Confidential information," Heero answered as he pulled into a parking space in front of their apartment building.

"I still think that I can get valuable work experience," Duo tried to reason with Heero.

"And I still think you shouldn't be there anymore."

"Fine. Whatever," Duo snarled and got out of the car. He slammed the car door shut and stomped his way inside. He wasn't sure if Heero got out after him, and wasn't sure if he should care or not.

The elevator was out of service, so, with a sigh, he turned away and took the stairs. By the time he reached his floor, his anger had cooled somewhat. He pulled out his key ring and realized that he never did get back his sigils. Oh well, he did have a few spares.

As he neared his door, he could tell something was wrong. There was a tension in the air, a heaviness that should not have been there. He looked ahead, down the hall, and was surprised to see black webbing covering the wall. It oozed out from behind the door to his apartment and crawled down the walls.

It looked like long black fingers reaching for something they couldn't find. The door itself was still a brown color, but the blackness crept out of the seams along the edges. Black ooze dripped onto the floor and spread out from there. Reaching spider webs across the floor to the other side of the hallway and up the far wall.

Duo wasn't sure what to do exactly. He didn't have his sigils on him and he didn't know if what he was seeing was actually physical or if it was something he was seeing, almost like an aura of sorts. He stepped closer to his door to open it, and stepped onto the black webbing. He felt as if he had stepped in wet concrete.

The floor gave way to the sludge and he was now knee deep in the blackness. He grabbed for the door frame, and it was too slick for him to get any purchase. He was slowly sinking further into the blackness. He looked at his hands and they were dripping with dark, almost black, life blood.

He shouted out and his voice echoed off the walls and bounced back endlessly. He grabbed first one leg behind the knee and then the other, but to no avail. He was slowly sinking down further and further and he couldn't get himself out. He looked up in time to see Heero come out of the stairwell, about halfway down the long corridor.

"Heero!" Duo yelled and waved his arms to get the other man's attention. Heero looked at him with a surprised look on his face and started to head towards Duo.

"What?" Heero asked succinctly. He looked Duo up and down to try to see what Duo's problem could be. Duo looked down at himself and realized he was kneeling on the floor. The black webbing, the ooze that was sucking him in, was not there. With surprise, he fell back onto his rear end and sat there, dumbfounded.

"What?" Heero repeated. He narrowed his eyes into a glare and just stared at Duo.

"N-nothing. Never mind," Duo stuttered. He stood up, going to unlock his door when he noticed that it was just slightly ajar. "I didn't do that," he whispered to himself.

"Are you sure you are okay?" Heero asked, a little concerned now, not with Duo himself, but with the situation at hand. The man looked spooked.

"I didn't unlock my door yet."

"Are you sure?"

"What do you mean, 'am I sure?' Yes I'm sure," Duo snapped. He slammed the door open and it bounced against the wall and almost came back to him in the face. He glowered at nothing in particular and held the door open. With one look inside, he stepped back out into the hallway and shut the door softly.

"Heero." He cleared his throat and tried again, louder this time. Heero was almost down to the door to his apartment, but turned around, clearly irritated.

"Duo, seriously, what is your problem?"

"Just look, okay?" Duo stepped back and gave Heero enough room to open his door and step inside. After only a moment, Heero stepped back out into the hallway.

"Well, that is something that I don't see every day," Heero said in a low voice.

"Nuh uh," Duo said intelligently. "Should I call the police?" Heero glared at the question, as if it had an obvious answer.

"Call Chang. He'll bring over the right people."

"Right," Duo said with a nod. He kept nodding and only caught himself on the fourth time he nodded. Heero, once again, started walking towards his apartment.

"Hey, Heero?" Duo shouted out tentatively. He really did not want to bother the other man, but he did not see what else he could do. He was so not going to go inside his apartment after what he saw in there. Heero, again, turned back to look at him.

"Do you have a phone I can use? I don't have a cell phone," he said in way of an explanation and a shrug of his shoulders. Heero gave a sharp nod and Duo had to stop himself from running down the hallway to get away from his apartment door.

He glanced back at back at his door, and had to do a double take. He could have sworn that he saw the black webbing creeping out from his door again. With a second look, everything looked as it should. He said a small prayer to those who watch over them. He turned around and followed Heero into his apartment.

Nothing stood out in the apartment. It was well furnished in hues of brown and cream. Unlike his own apartment, this one had a good sized balcony, leaving one entire wall in the living room made of glass. Above the couch hung a picture of a house in the middle of a field.

The kitchen looked pretty much like his own, except Heero had newer and shinier appliances. In the corner was a mock dining room and held a little two seat table. The kitchen was done in black and white. The little nook that held the table was a mix of the brown and black décor.

Duo could not see the man standing in front of him picking out these arrangements. Heero caught him looking around and just shrugged at Duo's unasked question.

"The FBI furnishes our apartments. Our own home away from home," he said as he held out a cell phone for Duo to use.

"Um, thanks," Duo told him. He dialed Wufei's number from memory. After several rings, the phone went to voicemail. He left a brief message telling Wufei that there was a slight emergency and that he needed him to call back as soon as possible. And oh, by the way, he was using Heero's phone since he could not get into his own apartment. He hung up the phone and handed it back to Heero who had come out of one of the rooms in the back of the apartment with a shirt in his hand.

"Here, why don't you put this on for now. You can always give it back to me later," Heero suggested. Duo was surprised by Heero's sudden change in behavior, but he was really tired of going without a shirt. Two days, two shirts ruined. If he kept this up he was going to have to go shopping. He dreaded going shopping.

"You didn't have to-" Duo started.

"No, I did not have to, but I really think you should be wearing a shirt," Heero stopped him from saying anything else with a dark look. Duo thanked him again and put the shirt on.

"Is it okay if I sit on the couch for a while?"

"Sure. They provide satellite TV, so make yourself at home."

"They seem to take care of their people," Duo stated, talking about the FBI.

"For the most part. I'm going to make a sandwich for lunch, do you want one?" Heero offered.

"Sure," Duo said, thinking that he might as well eat while he was able to. After a couple of minutes, Heero came into the living room with two sandwiches and bottles of water. He handed one of each to Duo before sitting on the opposite end of the couch.

"So, what are you watching?" Heero asked before he took a bite of his sandwich.

"The first movie of "The Night of the Living Dead"," Duo told him, taking a bite of his sandwich and was surprised to find that the white sauce was horseradish and not mayo.

"I don't think that I've seen that one," Heero said calmly, actually looking interested in the fact that it was playing. "I'm surprised that they even play such things anymore. There are hardly ever any black and whites on." Duo nodded as he quickly swallowed some water.

Duo was about to go on about the merits of the movie when Heero's phone rang. He looked on the screen of the phone and saw that it was Wufei that was calling in.

"Chang," Heero said in a way of greeting when he answered the phone. He waited a moment, then said, "We have a problem." Duo could hear the tinny sound of Wufei talking into the phone from his end.

"Maxwell can't get into his apartment and I'm not sure how to proceed without getting the local police involved. Understood." Heero shrugged his shoulders as he hung up the phone and tossed it onto the coffee table.

"So, what's the verdict?" Duo asked.

"Chang will be on his way along with a set of policemen," Heero answered. "They will be here in about twenty minutes."

"Okay, cool. Enough time to finish my sandwich and try hard as hell to get my bearings straight."

"Hn." Was the only answer that Duo received.


End file.
